On Wednesday, the Lahore High Court (LHC) came into action to suspend the ruling of National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf of accepting the resignations of 43 PTI members. After the verdict of LHC, the by-elections announced in the 43 constituencies are put on a hold.
During the hearing on February 08, 2023, Justice Shahid Karim pronounced the verdict on a petition filed by PTI member Riaz Fatyana. The petition was filed against the decision of the Speaker National Assembly to accept resignations and the de-notification orders released by the Election Commission of Pakistan.
NA Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf accepts 35 more resignations of PTI MNAs
PTI member Ali Zafar maintained the stance in Lahore High Court that MNAs of PTI withdrew their resignations before the speaker accepted them. He added that if the resignations were retracted, they cannot be accepted by the speaker. Ali pointed out that acceptance of resignations was against the law. He believed that Raja Pervaiz Ashraf took political revenge by accepting the resignations. Ali Zafar requested the court to nullify and void the orders of NA’s speaker.
LHC suspended the decision by Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to accept the resignations of the following PTI members:
- Muhammad Riaz Khan Fatyana
- Nasrullah Khan Dreshak
- Tahir Sadiq
- Zulfiqar Ali Khan
- Haji Imtiaz Chowdry
- Malik Muhammad Ehsan Ullah Tiwana
- Raza Nasrullah
- Muhammad Mehboob Sultan
- Muhammad Ameer Sultan
- Rai Muhammad Murtaza Iqbal
- Mian Muhammad Shafiq
- Muhammad Farooq Azam Malik
- Javed Iqbal Warakh
- Muhammad Shabbir Ali Qureshi
- Niaz Ahmed
- Khwaja Sheraz Mehmood
- Sardar Mohammad Khan LEghari
- Rukhsana Naveed
- Seemin Bukhari
- Munaza Hassan
- Nusrat Wahid
- Fauzia Behram
- Tashfeen Safdar
- Lal Chand
- Jai Parkash
- Jamshed Thomas
- Malik Anwar Taj
- Mohammad Yaqoob Sheikh
- Ghazala Saifi
- Syma Nadeem
- Naureen Farooque Khan
- Uzma Riaz
- Shaheen Niaz Saifullah
- Gul Zafar Khan
- Jawad Hussain
- Rahat Amanullah Bhatti
- Sobia Kamal Khan
- Nausheed Hamid
- Rubina Jamil
- Nafeesa Inayatullah Khattak
- Sajida Zulfiqar
- Zile Huma
- Shunila Ruth
The court issued notifications to the federal government and election commission to submit their responses by the next hearing.