PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday withdrew the contempt notices earlier issued to the provincial assembly’s speaker and five members, observing that the speaker had complied with its order by issuing the production order for MPA-elect Baldev Kumar to take oath.

The bench consisting of Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Syed Afsar Shah also turned down petitioner Kumar’s request for directing the speaker to summon a session of the assembly for administer him the oath of his office.

Mr Kumar was arrested in 2016 on the charge of killing the then adviser to the chief minister, Sardar Soran Singh.

Rules speaker had followed its directions by issuing production order for MPA-elect Kumar

He was on Serial No 2 of the priority list of the PTI candidates for the seats reserved for non-Muslims and therefore, he was declared MPA-elect by the Election Commission of Pakistan after the killing of Soran Singh.

The petitioner was freed after he was acquitted by an anti-terrorism court in Buner on Apr 26, 2018.

During detention, he had filed a petition with the court, which had directed the assembly speaker, Asad Qaiser, to issue production order for him.

However, when he was produced in the house on the order of the speaker, the atmosphere turned hostile as several MPAs protested against him and staged a walkout causing the session’s adjournment due to a lack of quorum.

The petitioner later filed a contempt petition against Speaker Asad Qaiser, minister Shah Farman and MPAs Lutfur Rehman, Arbab Jehandad, Mehmood Bittani and Mufti Fazal Ghafoor accusing them of creating hurdles to his oath-taking.

As the court sought their explanation on the matter, Shah Farman appeared in person, Qazi lawyer Mohammad Anwar showed up for the speaker, Ghulam Mohiuddin Malik for Arbab Jehandad and Muazzam Butt for the other three MPAs.

The bench had reserved its order on May 9 after the completion of arguments and pronounced it on Thursday.

Turning down the assertion of the petitioner’s counsel that the speaker ought to summon the provincial assembly’s session to ensure the true compliance of the court’s order, the bench ruled that under the law, the summoning of the provincial assembly was beyond the mandate of the authority vested in the speaker under Rule 12 of the Assembly Rules of Business, 1988.

It observed that the order of the court was only aimed at directing the speaker for issuing production order of the petitioner for administering him oath as a member of the assembly to enable him vote in the senate Elections.

It was added that admittedly the speaker issued the order of production of the petitioner, and as a result thereof he was brought to the House.

“Now, what happened after the petitioner was called and he entered the Provincial Assembly building, is beyond the scope of the contempt proceedings, as neither any specific direction was rendered nor are the internal proceedings of the house justiciable before this Court under Article 69 of the Constitution,” it ruled.

The bench didn’t agree with the petitioner’s contention that the speaker could administer the oath to the petitioner once he entered the building of the provincial assembly.

The bench ruled that it was not in consonance with the argument advanced by the counsel for the petitioner, as the oath to be administered to the elected member has to be made ‘before’ the provincial assembly.

“The word ‘before’ provided in Article-65 of the Constitution, clearly reflects the intention of the legislature,” the bench observed.

The bench ruled that going through the meaning of the word ‘before’ it is safe to conclude that it simply means, “in front of” or “in the presence of”, and this can only be before the members of the Provincial Assembly, when it is in session having the requisite quorum provided under the 1988 rules.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2018