LHC suspends order ‘reinstating’ 72 PTI lawmakers

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has suspended a previous decision to ‘reinstate’ 72 PTI lawmakers whose resignations had been accepted by the National Assembly speaker and who had been later de-notified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The order was passed on Tuesday by a two-judge bench, comprising Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan and Justice Shakil Ahmad, on an intra-court appeal filed by the National Assembly’s secretary, Tahir Hussain.

The judges suspended the order of Justice Shahid Karim, who in May suspended the de-notification of 72 PTI MNAs by the Election Commission and told them to appear before the National Assembly speaker in person to have their resignations withdrawn.

The two-judge bench observed that the intra-court appeal raised some important points and directed the appellant’s counsel to submit copies of the petitions pending before the Supreme Court and the Islamabad High Court on similar matters. It also sought a reply from respondents on June 21.

Judge’s order liable to be set aside ‘for being illegal, without jurisdiction’, NA secretary argues

In his appeal, filed through Barrister Lamia Niazi, the National Assembly secretary argued that the order passed by the single bench was liable to be set aside for being illegal, arbitrary and without jurisdiction.

He argued that the single judge decided the questions of factual controversy without deciding the preliminary objections to the maintainability of the petitions by the lawmakers.

Mr Hussain said the single judge erred in issuing the judgement based on misreading and non-reading of the facts and the law on the subject matter.

Besides, the appellant was not given a fair opportunity of hearing by the single judge, he said, adding that due process was not followed in passing the judgement.

He said once the National Assembly speaker was satisfied that lawmakers’ resignations were genuine and voluntary and then forwarded them to the Election Commission of Pakistan, no court could intervene unless the Election Commission refused to de-notify those lawmakers for some valid reasons.

Therefore, the findings of the single judge that the PTI lawmakers’ resignations could be withdrawn didn’t have any legal basis, the National Assembly secretary said.

He said the remarks made by the single judge throughout proceedings and the facts forming the background of the case suggested that the judge was seemingly predisposed and the appellant was well aware of this fact since he had serious apprehensions about the outcome of the case.

He requested the court to set aside the previous judgement and maintain a status quo until a final decision on the appeal. A division bench will likely take up the appeal next week.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2023