ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday dismissed a petition moved by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) contesting the acceptance of resignations of its Members of the Parliament (MPs) in “piecemeal”, declaring the acceptance of the same by Qasim Khan Suri, former deputy speaker of National Assembly, as unconstitutional.
During the hearing, Faisal Chaudhry, the counsel for PTI, expressed a lack of confidence in Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the speaker of the National Assembly, saying “his role [in accepting the resignations] is quite dubious.”
Chief Justice Athar Minallah objected to the statement, reminding him he could not utter such remarks against the speaker.
“I take back my words,” Chaudhry responded.
The court told the PTI lawyer that their MPs should have appeared before the House custodian and confirmed resignations in person if they had received letters from the speaker’s office.
“The 11 MNAs whose resignations had been accepted did not visit the speaker and hence 112 others followed suit,” the counsel replied to the judge.
The court said the legislators could still visit the speaker’s office and verify their resignations.
The PTI counsel argued that the decision for acceptance of resignations of 11 MNAs must be annulled. “Why are the elections being held on a ‘pick-and-choose’ basis,” he asked.
The court, however, rejected the PTI plea against the phase-wise acceptance of resignations.
Moved last month, the petition said that after the removal of the government of then-prime minister Imran Khan, PTI decided to tender its resignation from the Parliament since it was seeking a “fresh mandate” from the nation.
It said that in pursuant to the decision of a meeting of the parliamentary party held in the Parliament House on April 11, 123 party MPs tendered resignations which were duly accepted by Suri.
However, the newly-elected speaker, Ashraf, withheld these resignations and did not forward them to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on the pretext of “so-called verification of the resignation”.
“Now after the lapse of around three and a half months, the speaker approved resignations of only 11 MNAs of the PTI” and forwarded them to the ECP which has denotified the lawmakers, said the petition.
