The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday dismissed a petition of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) against the acceptance of resignations of its 11 Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) by the NA speaker.
Chief Justice Athar Minallah, who heard the case, also declared the notification issued by the then deputy speaker Qasim Suri with regard to the acceptance of PTI MNAs’ resignations as illegal.
The acting NA speaker NA had committed an illegal act and also violated the court’s decision, he added.
Rejecting the PTI’s request to form a larger bench on the matter, CJ Minallah observed that the court could not interfere into the affairs of parliament.
The (incumbent) NA speaker had satisfied himself over the resignations of 11 members of PTI before approving the same and the had no authority to examine the standard of his (speaker’s) satisfaction, he noted.
Chief Justice Minallah questioned whether it was not the responsibility of MNAs to perform their duties of representing the public until their resignations were approved. “There is a need to change our thinking to respect the parliament,” he said.
The court suggested the PTI MNAs to appear before the NA speaker in person to verify their resignations.
The chief justice asked whether the acting NA speaker (Qasim Suri) had verified the resignations by summoning members individually.
He observed that the IHC court had given a verdict in 2015 regarding the method of acceptance of (legislators’) resignations and instructed the PTI lawyer to read it.
As per the constitution, it was the responsibility of an elected member to serve the people of his c her constituency for a period of five years.
Earlier, NA speaker’s counsel Irfan Qadir pleaded that the then acting speaker Qasim Suri had taken the decision of accepting the resignations to avoid no-confidence motion against former prime minister Imran Khan.
He said he was not criticizing anybody but one person was contesting election in nine constituencies.
Additional Attorney General Munwar Dogal and Irfan Qadir also submitted written comments to the court.
PTI’s lawyer Faisal Chaudhry argued that the NA speaker had adopted a ‘pick and choose’ policy in the acceptance of MNAs’ resignations, as only 11 out 123 resignations were accepted.
The constitution had given several grounds to dissolve the National Assembly on the prime minister’s recommendation, he added.
He also prayed the court to form a larger bench to hear the case, which was rejected by the bench.
After the lawyers concluded their arguments, the court dismissed the petition, and asked the PTI members to appear before speaker for verification of their resignations.
