PESHAWAR: Following the Supreme Court’s judgement on the issue of the provincial assembly’s election schedule, the Peshawar High Court on Thursday disposed of petitions seeking its orders for the governor to fix the date for the electoral exercise.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim observed that the Supreme Court’s verdict had bound the provincial governor to announce the provincial assembly poll date and since the high court had to follow it, further proceedings on the matter weren’t required.

It added that the petitioners could approach it again if the governor didn’t act accordingly.

The three petitions were filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf through its secretary general, Asad Umar, woman lawyer of the former ruling party Mashal Azam and Peshawar Bar Association president Ali Zaman, who is also affiliated with the party.

Disposes of election schedule case after apex court’s orders

They had challenged a delay in the announcement of the schedule for polls to the provincial assembly, which was dissolved on Jan 18.

The petitioners had requested the court to direct the KP governor to follow the Constitution by ensuring the holding of polls within 90 days of the dissolution of the assembly.

Advocate Shumail Ahmad Butt appeared for the petitioners and said on March 1, the apex court had delivered its judgement ordering the governor to fix the provincial assembly poll date forthwith after consulting the Election Commission of Pakistan.

He added that the Supreme Court had declared that if the governor didn’t announce the election schedule, it was a breach of his constitutional responsibility.

The lawyer said everything about holding of polls was clearly mentioned in the Constitution.

JUDGE RECUSES: The high court adjourned to March 3 (Friday) the hearing into the petitions of 24 former PTI MNAs from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against the acceptance of their resignations by the National Assembly speaker and their subsequent de-notification by the ECP.

When a bench consisting of Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and Justice Ijaz Anwar took up the pleas for hearing, the latter recused himself observing that as he had remained the member of the appellate tribunal formed for by-polls and therefore, it won’t be appropriate for him to hear the case.

The former lawmakers have filed two identical petitions with the court requesting it to set aside four notifications issued by the NA speaker and the ECP on the matter.

They also sought an interim relief seeking suspension of those notifications and orders for the ECP not to hold by-polls in their constituencies until the disposal of their petitions.

The petitioners requested the court to declare the speaker’s act of accepting their resignations a violation of the law in line with the Supreme Court judgements.

The ECP has already announced the schedule for the by-polls to fill vacant seats and polling in the said 24 constituencies will be held on March 16 and 19, respectively.

Barrister Gohar Khan appeared for the petitioners and requested for staying the by-polls.

He stated that other high courts had already issued stay orders and had restrained the ECP from holding by-polls in those provinces.

When the bench asked him why the petitioners had tendered their resignations, he replied that the resignations were submitted in line with the decision of the party’s leadership after the ‘regime change’ and that it was meant to reach an agreement with the then opposition parties for holding fresh elections.

Justice Ijaz Anwar observed that the PTI lawmakers considered the act of tendering resignations to be a child’s play,as first, they demanded acceptance of their resignations but later, they wanted to withdraw them.

One of the petitions was filed by eight of the former MNAs, whose resignations were accepted by the NA speaker on Jan 17 and the same day the ECP issued notification to de-notify them. The petitioners include former NA speaker Asad Qaiser and seven others.

The other petition was jointly filed by 16 former MNAs, whose resignations were accepted by the speaker on Jan 20. The ECP had de-notified them through a notification the same day.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2023