PESHAWAR, April 21: The Pakistan Muslim League (Q) filed a constitutional petition in the Peshawar High Court on Monday against the MMA’s vice-president, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, requesting the court to disqualify him and declare his seat vacant in the National Assembly.

The petition was filed by central joint secretary of PML(Q), Advocate Moazzam Butt, stating that by not accepting the Legal Framework Order, Qazi Hussain Ahmad had violated his oath taken after becoming an MNA. He was thus not qualified to sit in parliament.

He prayed to the court to ask Mr Ahmad under what authority he had been holding the office of an MNA as he had not taken proper oath of his office.

It is learnt that to build up pressure on the MMA, similar petitions will also be filed against its secretary-general, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, and other parliamentarians in a day or two.

The petitioner stated that after becoming an MNA, Qazi Hussain Ahmad had taken oath under the Constitution. Later on, according to him, Mr Ahmad claimed that he had taken oath under the pre-LFO constitution of Pakistan and not under the present constitution.

Mr Butt held that the government had clarified that the LFO was part and parcel of the constitution and in fact Qazi Hussain Ahmad and other members of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal got elected to parliament because of the LFO.

He said that now Mr Ahmad had himself clarified that he had not taken oath under the present constitution. Therefore, the oath taken by him had become null and void in the eyes of law.

The respondents in the petition are Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Speaker of the National Assembly and government of Pakistan through secretary law and parliamentary affairs.

The petitioner stated that the MMA was creating hurdles in the smooth conduct of parliament proceedings and was responsible for a wastage of national exchequer to the tune of millions of rupees.

He stated that the people had been facing problems of unemployment, lack of education and poverty and they wanted that such issues should be debated in parliament, but due to the acts of Mr Ahmad and his supporters, parliament had turned into a laughing stock.