IHC to hear PTI plea against NA speaker tomorrow
August 3, 2022 03:50 PM
After removal of IHC registrar office’s objections to the PTI petition pertaining to the acceptance of party MNAs’ resignations by the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in a piecemeal manner has been admitted for hearing, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Wednesday.
Reportedly, the petitioner removed the objection raised by the Islamabad High Court registrar office following which the latter fixed the case hearing tomorrow (Thursday).
The PTI in its petition made its 123 lawmakers, who have submitted their resignations from the assembly seats in April this year, party to the case.
The registrar assigned number to the PTI petition when the petitioner removed the objection.
On Tuesday, Acting Chief Justice Amir Farooq heard the petition with objection and directed the petitioner to remove the registrar objection in two days.
The court registrar had raised an objection that there was no authority letter attached with the petition.
PTI leader Asad Umar on Monday filed a petition in the IHC stating that the present speaker of the NA had no “lawful authority or jurisdiction” to conduct the process of verification of the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs as they had already been accepted by then speaker Qasim Suri.
“Hence, the impugned act of the present speaker is unsustainable being illegal, unconstitutional, unwarranted, malafide, discriminatory, and politically motivated.”
It said that Ashraf was “bound to notify” the resignations “en bloc” to the ECP.
The petition said the ECP should be directed to “denotify all the 123 members at once and the same time instead of doing it in a piecemeal manner” and “issue the time schedule for the by-elections”.
Due to the delay in holding the polls, the petitioner as well as the constituents, were being deprived of their constitutional rights to participate in the governance of the country, the petition added.
Reporter Ehtisham Kiyani