The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday suspended National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s acceptance of the resignations of 43 PTI lawmakers and put by-elections in 43 constituencies on hold.
On a petition filed by PTI’s Riaz Fatyana and 42 other MNAs appealing the NA speaker’s acceptance of their resignations and the Election Commission of Pakistan’s de-notification orders, Justice Shahid Karim issued the court decision.
Following the speaker’s acceptance of resignations, the ECP denotified 123 MNAs (including those with reserved seats).
PTI lawyer Ali Zafar claimed at the hearing today that PTI MNAs had retracted their resignation before the NA speaker had accepted it.
He argued that the acceptance of the resignations was illegal and motivated by malice since “once the resignations are retracted, the speaker has no power to accept them.”
Zafar added that Ashraf had merely accepted the resignation to exact “political vengeance,” and that the NA speaker’s decree was in violation of the Supreme Court’s regulations.
“He never called PTI MNAs and asked them their stance,” he pointed out and requested the court to declare the speaker’s order null and void.
The court, therefore, put Ashraf’s judgment and the ECP’s de-notification order on hold. The federal government and the electoral board were also issued notices by Justice Karim, who asked them to respond to the case at the subsequent hearing.
PTI lawmakers whose resignations have been suspended
- Muhammad Riaz Khan Fatyana
- Nasrullah Khan Dreshak
- Tahir Sadiq
- Zulfiqar Ali Khan
- Haji Imtiaz Chowdry
- Malik Muhammad Ehsan Ullah Tiwana
- Raza Nasrullah
- Muhammad Mehboob Sultan
- Muhammad Ameer Sultan
- Rai Muhammad Murtaza Iqbal
- Mian Muhammad Shafiq
- Muhammad Farooq Azam Malik
- Javed Iqbal Warakh
- Muhammad Shabbir Ali Qureshi
- Niaz Ahmed
- Khwaja Sheraz Mehmood
- Sardar Mohammad Khan Leghari
- Rukhsana Naveed
- Seemin Bukhari
- Munaza Hassan
- Nusrat Wahid
- Fauzia Behram
- Tashfeen Safdar
- Lal Chand
- Jai Parkash
- Jamshed Thomas
- Malik Anwar Taj
- Mohammad Yaqoob Sheikh
- Ghazala Saifi
- Syma Nadeem
- Naureen Farooque Khan
- Uzma Riaz
- Shaheen Niaz Saifullah
- Gul Zafar Khan
- Jawad Hussain
- Rahat Amanullah Bhatti
- Sobia Kamal Khan
- Nausheed Hamid
- Rubina Jamil
- Nafeesa Inayatullah Khattak
- Sajida Zulfqar
- Zile Huma
PTI petition
According to the petition, PTI legislators asked the speaker to accept their resignations “without following due process” even though they had withdrawn their requests to be de-notified.
It argued that because they were motivated by political concerns to urge early elections, en masse resignations could not be regarded as resignations.
All petitioners were reportedly requested to return to parliament, and the speaker never refuted this allegation.
However, the petitioners’ resignations were “illegally” accepted by the speaker for political reasons when they decided to come back to the parliament and withdraw them, it added.
According to the appeal, the speaker and the Election Commission never observed the law and always carried out orders from above.
The speaker also said that before accepting the legislators’ resignations, he did not personally invite them to confirm them.
