LAHORE: The registrar’s office of Lahore High Court (LHC) Wednesday again objected to the petition of Punjab chief minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz for his oath-taking, this time for making the governor a respondent and not pinning a copy of his predecessor Usman Buzdar’s resignation to the petition.
The counsel for Shehbaz had accelerated efforts for getting the objections removed and have the petition fixed for hearing on the same day.
It merits a mention here that the Punjab governor and chief secretary had been made respondents in the petition.
It was stated in the petition that the resignation of Buzdar had been accepted on April 1, and since then, the office has been lying vacant.
The petition also stated that it was a constitutional convention for the governor to call the elected chief minister and administer the oath to him, adding violation of constitutional conventions was in fact a deviation from the Constitution itself.
It also alleged that a constitutional crisis was being created in Punjab which was against the parliamentary democracy and the spirit of the Constitution, adding the governor’s office was a symbol of federation and unity and the governor’s job was to protect the Constitution.
“In the written Constitution, the governor does not have the powers of a king. The governor’s refusal to take oath from the petitioner is a political ploy and bad intention. The offices of the president, assembly speaker and governor are bound to avoid adopting party policies,” it stated.
“As the oath is not being administered, the petitioner has got no choice but to file a constitutional petition. The Punjab governor should be ordered to administer the oath to the newly-elected Chief Minister of Punjab without any delay,” the court was urged.
