No-trust motion against Mazari: Punjab Assembly session postponed till May 16

Punjab Assembly Speaker Pervaiz Elahi called off a crucial assembly session on Thursday, meant to take up a no-trust resolution against its Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari, half an hour before it was supposed to begin Aaj News reported. The session has been postponed till May 16.

On April 6, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had submitted the motion against Mazari, days after the deputy speaker of the National Assembly Qasim Suri had dismissed a no-confidence resolution filed by the opposition against former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Speaking to the media, the Punjab Assembly speaker said that the session was deferred due to unforeseen circumstances, saying that officials of the assembly were being "harassed" by police officers while some of them have been arrested.

His statement comes after police arrested Secretary Coordination Punjab Assembly Inayat Ullah Lak ahead of the no-trust motion. Lak was arrested from outside the Governor House when he was going to court and was shifted to Garhi Shahu police station.

PTI submits no-confidence motion against Punjab Assembly deputy speaker

Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court (LHC) has ordered Punjab Governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema to swear in Hamza Shehbaz as chief minister of the province by Thursday (today).

In its verdict on a petition filed by Hamza, LHC Chief Justice Ameer Bhatti directed the governor to administer the oath to the newly-elected CM, or appoint an official to complete the task.

During the hearing, the court said the province was being run without a chief minister for 25 days, and delays in administering the oath to the CM-elect was against the constitution.

Meanwhile, PTI’s Basharat Raja has said that the PTI would not allow the PML-N to defeat the no-confidence motion against the deputy speaker with the support of its 26 dissident lawmakers.

“If the defectors will be excluded from the opposition parties, they will not have a majority in the House,” he said while addressing a press conference along with PML-Q’s Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and PTI MPAs on Thursday.

Raja said the PTI had filed a petition in the court that the Election Commission of Pakistan should be ordered to decide the case against PTI dissident MPAs and de-seat them soon.