LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) order denotifying Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) lawmakers in the National Assembly from Punjab who had resigned en masse last year in April.
Headed by Justice Shahid Karim, a single-member bench of the LHC heard the PTI plea today (Monday) and issued notices to the ECP and National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf and others, directing them to submit their responses by March 7.
The lawmakers had approached the high court challenging the acceptance of their resignation and subsequent denotification by the commission after the high court suspended a similar order of the ECP regarding 43 PTI MNAs.
Speaker Ashraf had accepted the resignation of 34 PTI lawmakers on January 17 and 35 MNAs on January 20, including Imran Khan ally Shiekh Rashid, which were then denotified by the commission and by-elections were announced.
Earlier this month, Riaz Fatyana and 42 other MNAs whose resignations were "accepted by the NA Speaker Ashraf on January 22" had filed a petition challenging the decisions of the NA speaker and the ECP.
The LHC judge had on Feb 8 ordered that the notification of the ECP shall remain suspended and the election schedule for the seats shall not be announced by the ECP.
“The process of by-elections to these seats shall remain suspended,” the court order reads. The court had admitted the petition for regular hearing seeking replies from the NA speaker, the ECP and the federal government by March 7.
Report highlighted “extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, other violations in country, says spox
Activist slams envoy for talking about civil rights as Germany "abusing people speaking for rights of Palestinians"
Quetta court suspends politico's arrest warrant till the next hearing scheduled on May 31
Accompanied by foreign and finance ministers, prime minister also expected to meet IMF's managing director
Sindh government has removed the barricades placed outside the CM House on the orders of the top court
PTCL's network is functioning optimally with "no service interruption", company says