Lahore: (Staff Reporter) The Lahore High Court (LHC) suspended an order issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to denotify 43 leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as members of the National Assembly (MNAs).
According to the source, Justice Shahid Karim announced the verdict on the petitions filed by the PTI lawmakers wherein they had made National Assembly Speaker Raja Parvez Ashraf and the ECP respondents. The court has also stopped the electoral body from holding by-elections in the constituencies until further orders.
During the hearing, PTI lawyer Ali Zafar argued that the legal requirements for accepting the resignations of the lawmakers had not been fulfilled. When Justice Karim inquired what kind of requirements was ignored in the process, Mr Zafar replied the NA speaker had violated the Constitution as he did not conduct an inquiry before accepting the resignations. He said as per the law, the speaker could not accept these without listening to the grievances of the lawmakers.
As per details the high court has notices to the ECP and other respondents, seeking their reply in the case. Last week, a group of PTI leaders, including Riaz Fatyana, Tahir Sadiq and Nasrullah Khan, filed the petition against denotifiation of 43 party lawmakers by the electoral body.
Furthermore on Jan 24, Mr. Ashraf accepted resignations of 43 more PTI lawmakers a day after they announced the withdrawal of their resignations in a bid to bar opposition leader Raja Riaz, a dissident PTI leader, from negotiating with the government on caretaker set-up in case general elections are announced.
Moreover the move took the tally of PTI resignations approved by the speaker to 124 as he had approved 70 resignations earlier and 11 in August last. The resignations were submitted by the PTI MNAs in April last in protest against the ouster of Imran Khan as prime minister through a no-confidence vote.
