ISLAMABAD: More than two weeks after they ended a seven-month boycott of parliament, the eligibility of 28 National Assembly members of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was formally challenged in the house on Wednesday by an opposition party and a government ally on the ground of their prolonged absence without leave.

Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq admitted for debate two identical motions of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F (JUI-F), which have invoked Article 64 of the Constitution to seek removal of the PTI legislators from their seats.

He told a stunned house that a debate on the motions would be held after seven days as required by the assembly’s rules of procedure.

There was no immediate response from the PTI inside the house to the move, which came 16 days after the party ended its boycott of parliament by attending its joint session that unanimously passed a resolution, which had asked the government to remain neutral in the Yemeni conflict.

Clause (2) of Article 64 of the Constitution says: “A house may declare the seat of a member vacant if, without leave of the house, he remains absent for forty consecutive days of its sittings.”

Rule 44 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, under which 23 lawmakers of the MQM and eight of the JUI-F tabled the motions, says that such a motion cannot be considered “before the expiry of seven days” from the date of its presentation and that its acceptance by the house will automatically result in the vacation of a member’s seat.

The ruling PML-N raised no legal objections to PTI members’ retention of their seats when they returned to the house after the government met one of their key demands by setting up a judicial commission to investigate alleged rigging of the 2013 general elections. But members of the party greeted the PTI lawmakers on their appearance at the joint session of parliament on April 6 with catcalls and demands for an apology for what they perceived as an offensive behaviour during more than seven months of a sit-in outside the parliament building.

While the main opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has since been advocating a forgive-and-forget approach, the MQM and the JUI-F have been calling for retribution, mainly because of their rivalry with the PTI -- the MQM’s in Karachi and the JUI-F’s in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The fate of the two motions will depend on whether the PML-N, which has a commanding majority in the house, prefers reconciliation or takes the risk of unpredictable consequence of so many by-elections if the 28 seats held by the PTI, including that of its chairman Imran Khan, are declared vacant.

It is believed that the introduction of the two motions will trigger intense legal and political debates and serve as a sword of Damocles hanging over the PTI until a final decision on the matter.

Sub-rule (1) of rule 44 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business says: “If a member is absent without leave of the assembly for forty consecutive days of its sittings, the Speaker shall bring the fact to the notice of the assembly and thereupon any member may move that the seat of the member who has been so absent be declared vacant under clause (2) of article 64 (of the Constitution).”

Sub-rule (2) of the same rule says: “On the consideration of the motion moved under sub-rule (1), the house may defer, reject or accept the motion and, if the motion is accepted, the seat of the member shall be declared vacant.”

If the seat of a member is declared vacant, the rule says, the assembly secretary must get a notification of that decision published in the government gazette and send a copy to the election commission for taking steps to fill the seat.

A total of 34 PTI members were elected to the 342-member house in the 2013 general elections and more than 30 of them had sent resignations to the speaker as part of their party’s agitation against the alleged poll rigging.

One of them, the then PTI president Javed Hashmi, confirmed his resignation in a speech in the house and the resignation was accepted by the speaker.

Three other MNAs of the party continued attending the assembly’s sessions while defying the party decision.

Other lawmakers of the party failed to confirm their resignations in one-to-one meetings with the speaker as insisted by him.

Two more PTI members could have also reneged as the MQM and JUI-F have listed only 28 lawmakers of the party in their motions. The MNAs include Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Shafqat Mehmood, Arif Alvi, Shireen Mazari, Hamid-ul-Haq Khalil, Sajid Nawaz, Imran Khattak, Ali Mohammad Khan, Mujahid Ali, Aqibullah, Shehryar Afridi, Khiyal Zaman Orakzai, Mohammad Azhar Jadoon, Dawar Khan Kundi, Ameerullah Marwat, Murad Saeed, Junaid Akbar, Qaiser Jamal, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, Rai Hassan Nawaz Khan, Munaza Hassan, Nafeesa Inayatullah Khan Khattak, Sajida Begum, Ayesha Gulalai and Lal Chand.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2015

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