ISLAMABAD - Three Members of National Assembly (MNAs) of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) elected from the federal capital Monday moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) challenging acceptance of their resignations.
The PTI MNAs, including former finance minister Asad Umar, Ali Nawaz Awan and Khurram Shehzad filed the petition in the IHC through his counsel Barrister Ali Zafar and Barrister Gohar Khan. They cited the federal government, Speaker National Assembly and secretary NA and the ECP as respondents in the case and requested the court to suspend the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECPs) and speaker National Assembly’s notifications.
In the petition, they stated that on 11-04-2022, en-masse letters were obtained by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf from 123 members of the National Assembly, including the petitioners, and submitted accordingly. They added that the petitioners acted on the directions of the party and for the political objective only of arriving at an agreement with the opposition parties for holding of fresh elections so that a new government may be formed with the real mandate of the people of Pakistan, and the nation could be relieved of the current impasse.
The PTI leaders said that the resignation was subject to all the 123 members of the National Assembly belonging to PTI resigning and being de-seated jointly and as a whole. They further said that the then acting Speaker (Deputy Speaker National Assembly, Qasim Suri) accepted the ‘en mass’ resignations on 13.04.2022 but after the Deputy Speaker’s resignation on 16.04.2022, the new Speaker (Respondent No. 1) was elected and he, on 16.04.2022, gave a ruling reversing the acceptance of the resignations by the acting Speaker (Deputy Speaker Mr. Suri) and directed the Secretariat to resubmit resignations for verification in accordance with the judgments of Superior Courts.
They added that the Speaker (Respondent No.1) decided to hold an enquiry and verify each resignation by calling each MNA individually to confirm whether they were willing and ready to resign. Thereafter, it was obvious to the petitioners that for their original resignation to be accepted they will have to go to the Speaker who will call them and thereafter verify.
They argued that after the aforesaid date i.e. 10.06.2022, the Speaker of the National Assembly in violation of the law and on his own started to accept some of the resignations and first of all, on 28.07.2022, Speaker accepted resignation of eleven members (nine elected and two women reserved seats) without following any due enquiry or verification under Article 64. “The resignations were forwarded to ECP on 28.07.2022 in terms of Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly 2007, whereupon ECP, vide notification dated 29.07.2022, de-notified those 11 MINAs. In doing so the speaker did not follow the requirements of Article 64 as laid down by the Superior Courts of Pakistan, for acceptance of resignations,” maintained the petitioners.