LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has accepted the petition challenging Speaker National Assembly’s order of de-notifying Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Members National Assembly (MNAs), paving way for the return of the opposition party members in the House.
Barrister Ali Zafar of the PTI confirmed this in a tweet on Friday. “Petition challenging NA Speaker’s de-notification of PTI MNAs has been accepted just now by LHC. This means PTI will go back to Assembly as robust opposition. In my opinion, the judgement is yet another historic decision which could lead to solution of the ongoing political crisis,” he said in the tweet.
The PTI MNAs, including Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Fawad Chaudhry, Pervaiz Khattak and others had challenged the acceptance of their resignations as MNAs by speaker national assembly.
Justice Shahid Karim of the LHC while announcing the verdict on the pleas of the PTI lawmakers, nullified the notifications of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf regarding the acceptance of their resignations.
While directing Hammad Azhar, Fawad Chaudhry, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Riaz Fatyana, Shafqat Mahmood and others to appear before the speaker to take back their resignations as MNA, the LHC asked Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf to take a decision after listening to the PTI legislators. In the petitions, the MNAs had maintained that the speaker didn’t listen to them before accepting their resignations. Earlier, the LHC suspended the ECP’s notification that de-notified 43 PTI MNAs.
