PTI moves IHC against NA speaker, ECP for accepting resignations of solely eleven MNAs

The PTI filed a petition within the capital on Monday against National Assembly (NA) Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and therefore the commission of Pakistan (ECP) for “staging the drama” of accepting the resignations of solely eleven party lawmakers after the complete party had resigned months ago.

PTI Move Islamabad High Court:

All the PTI lawmakers had resigned en bloc on April 11, two days after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted from the highest workplace when the no-confidence motion moved by the joint opposition within the parliament against him succeeded.

Ali Muhammad Khan, Fazal Muhammad Khan, Shaukat Ali, Fakhar albizzia Khan, Farrukh Habib, Jamil Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Akram Cheema, Abdul Shakoor Shad, Dr. Shireen Mazari, Shandana Gulzar Khan, and Ijaz Ahmed Shah are the lawmakers whose resignations had been accepted.

The petition filed on Monday is explicit that this speaker of the National Assembly had no “lawful authority or jurisdiction” to conduct the method of verification of the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs as they had already been accepted by the speaker Qasim Suri.

The petition said that the impugned act of this speaker is unsustainable misappropriated, unconstitutional, unwarranted, discriminatory, mala fide, and politically motivated.

The petition read that Ashraf was “bound to notify” the resignations “en bloc” to the Election commission of Pakistan (ECP) .

The petition said that the ECP ought to be directed to “de notify” all the 123 members promptly and therefore the same time rather than doing it in an exceedingly incremental manner” and “tell the time schedule for the by-elections”.

The petition said that due to the delay in holding the polls, the petitioner, as well as the constituents, were being deprived of their constitutional rights to participate within the governance of the country.

Later in the evening, PTI’s plea was accepted for hearing and fixed for Tuesday (August 2). It will be detected by Justice Aamer Farooq.

‘ECP is not a free establishment anymore’

Separately, talking to media outside court earlier on Monday, PTI general-secretary Asad Umar alleged that the ECP was not an “independent institution” and had become a “political respondent”.

He said that in April, our parliamentary Shah Mehmood Qureshi had proclaimed within the assembly that all the 123 PTI MNAs wished to resign. The complete nation saw it on their tv screens.

Asad Umar demanded that then why is that the ECP doing this drama, questioning the law under that the electoral body had solely accepted eleven resignations once “sitting on them for three and a half months”.

Umar said that the commission had a history of taking unlawful selections, reiterating that eighty percent of folks in the country had lost confidence in ECP.

However, on April 17, the recently elected Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf directed the assembly secretariat to influence the resignations of the PTI lawmakers anew and present them before him so they might be treated as per law.

The ruling of the twenty-second speaker of the assembly had come amid claims and speculations that a number of the PTI lawmakers had been willing to retract and are transference messages that their resignations must not be accepted.

Later on, in June, the ruling coalition developed a method on the matter of en bloc resignation of PTI lawmakers from the National Assembly and united to proceed with phase-wise acceptance.

Meanwhile, parliamentary sources had disclosed that thirty members of the previous ruling party did not wish to resign from the lawmakers and added that these lawmakers can directly reach intent on the National Assembly speaker to prevent the acceptance of their resignations.

Nonetheless, the second part of the process of the PTI resignations is to start this week. In this regard, the speaker of the National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf can take a choice today after any consultation with the ruling coalition together with legal and constitutional consultants.

Sources say that there is a powerful chance that the resignation of eleven PTI members belonging to the districts of South Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are accepted by the speaker of the National Assembly.

Also Read: PTI Farrukh: PML-N’s game is finished in Punjab

Furthermore, the resignations of members from Malakund and Layyah are planned to be accepted together with the resignations of some women members on the special seats.

However, the resignations of PTI central leadership, as well as Imran Khan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Murad Saeed have not been accepted nevertheless.