ISLAMABAD    -   Pakistan Tehreek-e-In­saf (PTI) on Saturday filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Paki­stan seeking a judicial investigation into the recently surfaced audio recordings about pur­ported conversations between Prime Minis­ter Shehbaz Sharif and federal ministers re­garding the resignation of PTI MNAs from the National Assembly. Last week, some audio record­ings of conversations be­tween key government figures including Prime Minister Shehbaz Shar­if, PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz and some mem­bers of the federal cab­inet surfaced online. In one of the recordings, a conversation between the prime minister, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Law Minister Azam Na­zeer Tarar, Interior Min­ister Rana Sanaullah and Ayaz Sadiq about the res­ignations of PTI lawmak­ers from the lower house of parliament. PTI law­makers had resigned en masse from the NA on April 11, following the ouster of party chief Im­ran Khan as the premier through a no-confidence motion. Then-NA depu­ty speaker Qasim Suri, in the capacity of the House’s acting speak­er, had subsequently ac­cepted the resignations of 123 PTI MNAs. Howev­er incumbent NA Speak­er Raja Pervaiz Ashraf decided to verify the res­ignations and on July 27 accepted 11 of them. The PTI had challenged the move in the IHC on Au­gust 1, contesting that it was “unsustainable”. The IHC, however, dismissed the petition on September 6 and declared that the ac­ceptance of PTI lawmak­ers’ resignations by Suri was unconstitutional. The PTI had subsequently ap­proached the SC, praying it to set aside the IHC or­der, terming it “vague, cur­sory and against the law”. In the petition filed on Saturday, PTI contended that in the recently sur­faced audio leaks, PM She­hbaz and federal ministers could be heard discussing a “heinous strategy to out­play the petitioner from the parliamentary poli­tics in the most illegal, un­lawful and objectionable manner”. “The entire dis­cussion revolves around a criminal strategy/conspir­acy to affect and target the petitioner through (illegal and unlawful) piecemeal acceptance of the resig­nations tendered by the members of the Nation­al Assembly on the 11th day of April 2022, belong­ing to the petitioner par­ty.” It stated that the in­cumbent NA speaker and the NA secretary were in­volved in the “conspiracy”. PM Shehbaz and feder­al ministers Rana Sanaul­lah and Marriyum Aurang­zeb have also admitted the “actuality and existence of the referred audio leaks,” it said. “After the admis­sion from the incumbent office holders, the revela­tions surfaced through the audio leaks are to be treat­ed as new facts emerged during the pendency of the proceedings before this august court, there­fore, request to take judi­cial notice of the startling revelation deemed most appropriate,” the peti­tion prayed. Furthermore, it claimed that the prime minister, NA speaker and federal minister had vio­lated their oath. “Criminal proceedings may very gra­ciously be lodged against them,” it said. In a tweet later in the day, PTI lead­er Fawad Chaudhry con­firmed the development. He demanded that the re­cordings should be inves­tigated and that the SC should take a decision on PTI’s piecemeal resigna­tion petition in light of the recordings.