Daily Times

Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh of the Lahore High Court on Monday directed a petitioner-lawyer to advance more arguments that under which law an elected person could be deprived of his right to represent his constituency before the assembly.

The judge directed the petitioner to apprise whether a session of the assembly could be held without the presence of opposition leader.

The judge inquired from petitioner, “Do you mind if an under trial prisoner attends session of the National Assembly? Is not it a violation of fundamental rights if a person having people’s mandate is barred from attending the NA session?”

The judge also directed the law officer to advance more arguments on the jurisdiction of the single bench.

The judge issued the direction while postponing until Friday, the hearing of a petition challenging a decision of NA speaking for production orders for the attendance of Opposition Leader in NA Shehbaz Sharif in the sessions during his physical remand.

The petitioner claimed that the production order could not be issued during the physical remand. He submitted that the national accountability bureau failed to complete its investigation as the accused spent most of the time of the remand during the assembly’s sessions.

He submitted that that Shehbaz Sharif had been misusing his attendance in the sessions by speaking against state institutions on the floor of the assembly in sheer violation of the assembly rules.

To a court’s query, the petitioner replied that he had submitted three applications to the NA speaker in this regard but no action had been taken on the matter. A deputy attorney general requested to refer the matter to a division bench as the petitioner impleaded the National Accountability Bureau as well in the petition.

Published in Daily Times, December 11^th 2018.