Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday issued notices to the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and others on a petition filed by the PTI against the ‘slow acceptance’ of resignations of its lawmakers. All the PTI lawmakers had resigned en masse on April 11, two days after Imran Khan was ousted as prime minister.

In April, Ashraf decided to verify the resignations of 123 PTI lawmakers by calling them individually or in small groups, as some two dozen PTI MNAs had approached him seeking a meeting to clarify their stance. A news report quoting sources said the NA Secretariat had confirmed that majority of the resignations submitted by the PTI MNAs were not handwritten and had a similar text printed on the PTI’s letterhead. They said the secretariat staff also had doubts about the signatures of some members as these were not matching with those on the assembly’s roll.

According to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007, a member may “by writing under his hand addressed to the speaker resign his seat”. In 2020, when PTI was in power, former minister Sheikh Rashid had said that printed resignations held no legal value when PDM was threatening en masse resignations. On July 27, the NA speaker accepted the resignations of 11 lawmakers of the party.

Ali Muhammad Khan, Fazal Muhammad Khan, Shaukat Ali, Fakhar Zaman Khan, Farrukh Habib, Jamil Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Akram Cheema, Abdul Shakoor Shad, Dr Shireen Mazari, Shandana Gulzar Khan and Ijaz Ahmed Shah are the MNAs who have been denotified from their seats. Subsequently, the party approached IHC earlier this week seeking approval for all the PTI’s MNAs’ resignations and their denotification. During the hearing on Thursday, PTI lawyer Faisal Chaudhry said that his counsel had submitted the authority letter of all the 123 MNAs in court after which they too had become respondents in the case.

He contended that on April 11, the then deputy speaker Qasim Suri had accepted the resignations of all the PTI parliamentarians. Chaudhry then submitted Suri’s order, dated April 13, in court which stated: “I have received the resignations of 125 members of National Assembly belonging to the PTI as earlier announced in the house by Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, deputy parliamentary leader, PTI, on April 11, 2022. “I have perused all the resignations and reached the conclusion that all of them except the resignation of Prince Muhammad Nawaz Allai, NA-12 and Jawaid Hussain, NA-47, are voluntary and genuine,” it said. The order added that Suri had accepted these resignations and ordered to notify the same in the gazette.

Chaudhry also submitted the list of all the 123 PTI MNAs in court. After listening to his arguments, Justice Aamer Farooq issued notices to Ashraf, ECP, and the secretary Cabinet Division. He also instructed the NA secretary to produce all the records in court through an authorized officer and adjourned the hearing till August 16.