File photo. Farooq Naeem—AFP
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday appealed in the Supreme Court an Islamabad High Court (IHC) ruling that had said National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was not bound to accept resignations of PTI lawmakers en masse.
In July, Ashraf had accepted the resignations of 11 PTI members, with the party protesting the move as an attempt to delay proceeding toward general elections. It had also asserted that all 123 resignations of PTI MNAs had been accepted by former deputy speaker Qasim Suri and there was no legal justification for the incumbent speaker to deny this. In its ruling, the IHC had noted that it was the speaker’s prerogative to accept or reject resignations, questioning why Suri had not interviewed every resigning member individual as per law.
In its latest appeal, the PTI challenged the Sept. 6 order of the IHC to dismiss its plea against the phase-wise acceptance of lawmakers’ resignations. Naming the speaker, the Election Commission of Pakistan, the federation through the cabinet secretary and all 123 lawmakers as respondents in the petition, the PTI has argued that after the change of the government, allegedly orchestrated through a foreign conspiracy, the PTI’s leadership took a policy decision to protest it through resignations.
“To seek a fresh mandate from the people, the party decided to get all its elected members resigned en-bloc from the National Assembly,” it said, adding the decision had been taken during a parliamentary party meeting chaired by PTI Chairman Imran Khan on April 11.
Reiterating that the incumbent NA speaker had no authority to stall his acceptance of the resignations, the petition described the IHC ruling as “vague, cursory and against the law.” It said the court hadn’t addressed legal and constitutional questions, adding, “no law permits the successor office holder i.e. the speaker of the National Assembly to alter, modify, review or revise the order of the predecessor with regard to the acceptance of the resignations that have already accepted and notified by his predecessor in office.”