LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday issued notices to the speaker and the secretary of the Punjab Assembly and the advocate general of Punjab on petitions challenging the speaker’s act of not convening a session to elect new chief minister of the province and withdrawing the deputy speaker’s powers.

Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz, also the opposition’s joint nominee for the chief minister office, and Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari filed the petitions.

LHC Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti took up the petitions as objection-case since the registrar’s office had objection to the maintainability of the petitions.

The chief justice overruled the objections and decided to hear the petitions on Monday.

Advocate Azam Nazir Tarar, the counsel for Mr Hamza, asked the chief justice to hear the petition on Saturday as the Supreme Court had also heard the matter relating to the National Assembly on Sunday, that is otherwise a court holiday.

CJ Bhatti observed that the matter before the Supreme Court was different and he could not take any decision without going through the record of the assembly.

The counsel stated that the office of the chief minister had fallen vacant after the resignation of Mr Usman Buzdar.

He said the respondent speaker, on April 2, unlawfully adjourned the session of the assembly for April 6 to elect a new chief minister. However, the speaker once again unlawfully adjourned the session till April 16.

The chief justice asked the counsel was there any issue in scheduling the session for April 16.

The counsel said the matter was of grave importance as the largest province of the country had no chief minister for the last many days.

He said the advocate general of Punjab assured the Supreme Court on April 5 that voting for the Punjab chief minister’s slot in the assembly would be held on April 6. He said that on the day of election the assembly premises was sealed and none of the legislators was allowed to enter the assembly.

The counsel asked the court to order the speaker to convene the assembly session without any delay so that the members could elect the new chief minister.

Asked about AGP Ahmad Awais, an additional advocate general told the court that the top law officer was in Islamabad.

On behalf of Deputy Speaker Mazari, Advocate Usama Khawar argued that the notification issued by the speaker regarding withdrawing powers of the petitioner was highly problematic, as it led to a complete disruption of the democratic process within the assembly.

He said the deputy speaker was being denied exercise of the powers due to the impugned notification, and being prevented from presiding over the ongoing election for the vacant position of Punjab chief minister.

CJ Bhatti observed that the situation explained by the lawyers was apparently contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, as well as the rules of procedure.

The chief justice directed the assembly secretary to appear in person on April 11 along with the record of the chief minister’s election process. Other respondents were also directed to submit their replies by the next hearing.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2022