PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Monday returned a petition seeking the removal of Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur for allegedly breaching the oath of his office during the recent street protests, citing technical grounds.

The petition, filed by Sayyed Aziz Din Kakakhel, has named the provincial chief minister, governor and police chief, Election Commission of Pakistan, and the federal and provincial governments as respondents.

The high court’s registrar returned the petition, insisting it doesn’t “fulfil legal requirements.”

He declared that there is a specific procedure to remove the chief minister from his office, with the Constitution empowering the provincial assembly to do so, so the high court couldn’t entertain the petition.

Constitution empowers PA to oust chief minister, declares registrar

The petitioner insisted that after assuming the charge of the chief minister, Ali Amin Gandapur had taken the law of the land into his own hands by repeatedly invading on the pretext of procession from KP to different areas of Punjab, accompanied by mobs and committed offences within the jurisdiction of police stations concerned.

He added that after the CM committed that offence, he was directly named in different FIRs but he continued to provoke people against the federal government.

The petitioner said the chief minister breached his office by declaring former prime minister Imran Khan, who was convicted in a case, the ‘Red Line’ just to get his freed from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

He added that the chief minister had actually invaded the government, on the pretext of processions, with the help of mobs along with all resources of the provincial government, suggesting that he was striving for a state within the state.

The petitioner said it was an alarming situation for the country and caused huge financial losses to the provincial government that should be recovered from him.

He said that the chief minister was not an ordinary citizen and rather, he was the chief executive of a province and had the extra responsibility of ensuring law and order and acting in line with the law and the Constitution, but his participation in the recent processions and protest rallies against the federal government as well as his speeches had taken the country towards anarchy, which cost an official of the Islamabad police his life.

“The chief minister’s conduct is against the basic spirit of the law and the Constitution,” the petitioner insisted.

The petitioner also said that no one was above the law whether he was a chief minister or a prime minister, and so, after the violation of oath of his office, the chief minister was liable to be removed from his office.

“I pray that on the acceptance of this writ petition, all actions taken by the chief minister on the pretext of processions against the federal government be declared illegal, unconstitutional, based on favouritism and nepotism, null and void ab-initio and he be disqualified in terms of Article 62 of the Constitution,” he said.

The petitioner also requested the court to order the provincial governor to immediately notify the chief minister’s removal from his office.

He sought the court’s orders for the provincial government and inspector general of police to ensure the chief minister’s arrest over various first information reports registered against him and recover all expenses of the provincial government illegally spent by him.

Mr Kakakhel later told reporters that he was reviewing the objections raised by the court and would file a fresh petition after addressing them.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2024