Islamabad - A Division Bench of Islamabad High Court yesterday turned down an Intra Court Appeal (ICA) seeking disqualification of Member National Assembly (MNA) Ayesha Gulalai as a lawmaker. The DB comprising of Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb announced the verdict which it had reserved earlier after hearing the arguments.

The court noted in its verdict, “Admittedly the proceedings relating to disqualification of the respondent No 3 (Ayesha Gulalai) are pending before the learned Election Commission of Pakistan and therefore, adjudication of the constitutional petition which had been filed by the appellant would have amounted to an interference with the said proceedings.”

Moreover, the IHC dual bench observed that the appellant also could not show that she is an aggrieved person in the context of Article 199 of the Constitution. Therefore, the bench dismissed the petition.

Kulsoom Khaliq Advocate filed the petition and nominated Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Speaker National Assembly and MNA Ayesha Gulalai as respondents.

Earlier, a single bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq had turned down her petition by terming the same as non-maintainable.  In her petition, she stated that Ayesha was elected MNA on the ticket of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and she remained in the said party and so far not resigned from the party even after levelling false, fabricated and baseless allegations against his party chairman.

Kulsoom added that such allegations are itself sufficient to disqualify her as MNA as she has committed misconduct by levelling false allegations against the party chairman. She continued that Ayesha had levelled such allegations without solid proof and material in her possession.