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Thursday March 28, 2024

Shujaat retains reins of PMLQ

By Mumtaz Alvi
February 01, 2023

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday announced its reserved verdict, retaining Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain as the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid and rejecting the decision of the party’s Central Working Committee as having no legal validity.

A five-member ECP bench, in its detailed judgement, declared the recent removal of Shujaat by the CWC from the party’s presidency null and void and said that his removal was contrary to the party’s constitution.

In August last, the ECP had reserved its verdict on a petition seeking removal of Shujaat from the PMLQ’s presidency and holding intra-party elections.

The verdict says: “The petitioner as per the record was elected as president of the PMLQ unopposed in the last intra-party election notified on 16.01.2021 and has to remain president till next polls as per Article 140 of the party’s constitution…” “The unopposed election of the president remained unchallenged till the impugned proceedings, therefore, the doctrine of acceptance by silence is attracted. The record also reveals that the CWC, which has carried out the impugned proceedings, was not constituted in accordance with Article 143 of the PMLQ constitution as 50 members out of 200 were required to be elected by the party’s council and 50 were required to be nominated by the PMLQ president and he has the authority to increase the number of CWC members as and when required,” the ECP order says. The bench also pointed out in its verdict that it was noted with concern that the quorum for a meeting of the CWC is 40, excluding the office-bearers. However, from the documents available at page 62-65, it is a mystery how many members attended the meeting. The respondent till date also failed to produce list of the meeting attendees. “The discussion has led us to the conclusion that the proceedings carried out by the so-called CWC of the PMLQ, which have been impugned before us qua removal of the petitioner from the post of president and issuing an election schedule for the said post, have no legal sanctity in the eyes of the law, having been carried out beyond the PML constitution…,” the verdict says. A consultative meeting of the PMLQ held in Lahore a few day back ‘removed’ Shujaat and ‘installed’ his brother Ch Wajahat Hussain as party president and ‘installed’ Kamil Ali Agha as its secretary general in place of Tariq Bashir Cheema.