ISLAMABAD, March 10: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the attorney-general to give government’s view on Monday when it will hear an appeal against the Lahore High Court’s rejection of a petition, seeking permission for jailed opposition MNA Javed Hashmi to vote in the election for a Senate seat.
Advocate Syed Zafar Ali Shah had moved the appeal on behalf of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Maimoona Hashmi, seeking directives to authorities to urgently arrange a flight from Lahore to Islamabad and produce her father Javed Hashmi in the National Assembly on Friday (today) to enable him to cast vote in the election.
On Thursday, Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha of the Rawalpindi bench of the LHC, had dismissed her similar petition.
Soon after the filing of the appeal at 10:50 am, the Supreme Court office faxed the petition to Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who was at the Quetta branch registry.
He immediately nominated Justice Hamid Ali Mirza to hear the matter who, after hearing the legal counsel in his chambers, directed Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan to appear and submit government’s reply on Monday.
In her appeal, Ms Hashmi said her father was not only a member of the National Assembly but also parliamentary leader of the PML-N and president of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, and it was his constitutional right to cast his vote.
She stated that another appeal against the conviction of Mr Hashmi, who is undergoing 23 years of rigorous imprisonment for abetting mutiny and has been lodged in the Kot Lakhpat Jail, was pending in the high court.
The Election Commission, she recalled, had ordered the Punjab home secretary to produce detained members of parliament — Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Mian Mohammad Aslam and Khwaja Saad Rafiq — in the assembly to enable them to cast votes in the Senate elections for the federal capital seat.
However, the commission decided that it was not an appropriate forum to decide similar request by Mr Javed Hashmi.
“There is no provision in law which bars a convict from casting vote,” she stated and argued that the findings of the high court was not relevant and was based on erroneous interpretation of law.
