Peshawar:
The High Provincial Court of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) prevented the upper and lower houses in Parliament from appointing new opposition leaders for the condemnation, moving and denotation of the previous ones – Shibli Faraz and Omar Ayub of PTI.
A division bench of the High Court of Peshawar (PHC) including judge Syed Arshad Ali and judge Dr Khurshid Iqbal made this ordinance on Tuesday as the petitions heard the petitions in the name of Shibli and Omar by the president of Pti Barrister Gohar Ali Khan.
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Faisalabad on July 31 sentenced more than hundreds of PTI leaders and workers, including Shibli Faraz and Omar Ayub in a case of May 9, 2023, sentenced them to ten years in prison.
The Pakistan Electoral Commission, taking an opinion on SUO motu of the conviction, disqualified the leaders of the PTI on August 5. Later, on August 7, the president of the National Assembly, Ayaz Sadiq, also issued a notification of Omar and declaring the vacant seat.
The Senate secretariat, on August 8, also published a notification, declaring that Faraz’s disqualification on August 5 had led to the loss of both its members of the Senate and his position as head of opposition to the upper chamber. The PTI challenged these notifications.
Among Tuesday at the PHC, Barrister Gohar said they had deposited distinct petitions against the denotation of opposition leaders in the National Assembly and the Senate.
He argued that the head of the opposition is a constitutional post, chosen under rule 39 of the Assembly. He said that a member was elected to the National Assembly, the role of the ECP ends.
He referred to a decision of the Supreme Court declaring that the ECP cannot disqualify a member without reference of a speaker. He called an unfortunate incident on May 9 which should not have occurred.
The president of the PTI declared earlier that the ECP also disqualified Abdul Latif of PTI of Na-1 Chitral, wrongly citing the Siddic Azhar affair. “We have won 180 seats, entered the Parliament with 90, and only 77 remains. We are proud of Omar Ayub, who received the votes of 30 million people,” he added.
He alleged that the government now wanted to pass an opposition chief from another party.
“Without reference to a speaker, the ECP has disqualified the leaders of the PTI. The court should order that no other measure is taken,” he said.
After the conclusion of the arguments, judge Ali declared that the court granted a suspension order at the request of the PTI. The bench then interrupted the appointment of new opposition leaders both in the National Assembly and the Senate. He also issued opinions to ECP and other respondents, requesting an answer by August 15.
In its written order, the court said that no appointment of a new opposition chief to the National Assembly should be made before the next hearing.
He declared that the petitioner cited the Muhammad Azhar Siddique vs Federation case, where the Supreme Court judged that the ECP could not disqualify a member without reference from a speaker.
The petitioner also claimed that the ECP had misinterpreted the SC decision and that the appointment of an opposition chief of another party would be against parliamentary standards, because their party always has the greatest number of opposition members, he added.
The PHC, in his written order, issued opinions to the respondents to appear on August 20 and ordered that no other action is taken on the notification of August 7 until then.
