ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday filed an amended appeal against the Islamabad High Court (IHC)’s judgment regarding the acceptance of the resignations of the PTI lawmakers.
PTI Secretary General Asad Umar, on September 13, had filed the appeal against the IHC through advocate Faisal Fareed and made the speaker National Assembly, the Election Commission of Pakistan, the secretary Cabinet Division, and the secretary National Assembly respondents. However, the Registrar Office on September 14 had returned the appeal as it did not contain the grounds.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah on September 6 had turned down the PTI’s petition challenging the phase-wise acceptance of its Members of National Assembly (MNAs) and declared that the then deputy speaker Qasim Suri’s issued notification of acceptance of the resignation was “in violation of the Constitution”.
The petition said that the judgement is “vague, cursory and against the law and has been rendered in a mechanical manner without addressing the material legal and constitutional questions raised in the writ petition”. It also claims that the IHC disregarded the material facts of the case at hand and failed to adhere to the principle that each case has to be decided on its own peculiar facts.
The petitioner mentioned that article 64 of the Constitution of Pakistan does not provide for any kind of enquiry by the Speaker and rather cast a duty upon him to send it to the Election Commission for de-notification of a member who openly admits that he has resigned. A constitutional office holder ceases to occupy such offices not sooner then he resigned from his position under his signature.
The impugned judgment amounts into redundant the Article 64 of the Constitution of Pakistan and rules of Procedure of the National Assembly 2007 in an unlawful and arbitrary manner.
No law permits the successor office holder, i.e., the speaker of the National Assembly to alter, modify, review or revise the order of the predecessor with regard to the acceptance of the resignations that have already accepted and notified by his predecessor in office.
The secretary National Assembly could not in any manner sit on the notification after the acceptance of the resignations by the speaker in any manner to aid and abet the unconstitutional and illegal actions.
The impugned actions/inactions are illegal, perverse, and tantamount to abuse of law, authority, as well as, the infringement of constitutional and fundamental rights of the petitioner ensured under the Constitution of Pakistan. Hence, they are void, unfair, unjust, unwarranted, arbitrary, malafide, illegal, and unconstitutional. The respondents have failed to discharge their duties as per exigencies of their statutory responsibilities and acted in excess of their lawful authority and in violation of law and mandate. The speaker in the present circumstances has no reason to doubt the geniuses and voluntary submission of the resignation.
However, he is acting illegally and against the Constitution in not giving effect to the resignation immediately.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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