Daily Times

A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench on Tuesday suspended an order for reinstatement of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNAs from Punjab.

The bench, comprising Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan and Justice Shakil Ahmad passed the orders while hearing an intra-court appeal filed by National Assembly Secretary Tahir Hussain challenging a single bench order against the acceptance of the resignations of 72 PTI MNAs from Punjab.

The bench also sought a reply from respondents till June 21.

In his appeal, the NA secretary had submitted that the order passed by the single bench was liable to be set aside for being illegal and without jurisdiction. He submitted that the single judge decided the questions of factual controversy without deciding the preliminary objections regarding the maintainability of the petitions. He submitted that after satisfying the genuineness of resignations, if the NA speaker forwarded them to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) then no court could go behind the satisfaction of the speaker unless the ECP for some valid reasons refused to de-notify those lawmakers.

He pleaded with the court to set aside the order of the single bench and maintain a status quo till the final decision on the appeal. On May 19, Justice Shahid Karim had allowed the petitions of PTI MNAs and set aside the acceptance of resignations of 72 PTI MNAs by the NA speaker and their subsequent de-notification by the ECP. The court ordered the PTI MNAs to appear before the speaker for withdrawing their resignations, besides ordering the speaker to decide the resignations’ matter after re-hearing the law makers.