LAHORE, Aug 3: The Lahore High Court chief justice on Friday suspended Punjab Assembly’s membership of PML-N MPA Rana Asif Mahmood for having dual nationality and gave him another chance to defend his case.

Earlier, Deputy Attorney General Naveed Inayat Malik produced record of those parliamentarians whose memberships had been suspended by the Supreme Court for having dual nationality.

The CJ was hearing a petition seeking disqualification of Rana Asif Mahmood.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial after going through the record observed that apparently the respondent (Mahmood) enjoyed citizenship of Canada and was not eligible to be a member of the assembly.

Advocate Jamshed Rehmatullah defended the respondent and argued that his client had Canadian passport but did not enjoy the nationality.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that according to the Canadian law, getting passport of the country amounted to getting citizenship.

The CJ suspended the membership of the MPA and adjourned hearing till Oct 12, affording him the last chance to defend himself.

Ilyas Siddique filed the petition and submitted that Rana Asif Mahmood possessed an overseas identity card which was granted only to a Pakistani citizen who had secured passport of another country.

He alleged that the respondent was a Canadian national and under Article 63 of the Constitution, a person holding dual nationality could not be elected member of the national or provincial assembly.

The petitioner prayed that the respondent MPA be declared disqualified by invoking the provisions of Article 63.

PCB boundary wall dispute The Lahore High Court constituted a committee on Friday to resolve a dispute of the boundary wall around the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) office at Qadhafi Stadium, which was demolished by the town administration.

The committee comprises government representatives and PCB officials was directed to submit its report till Sept 4.

The court was hearing a contempt of court petition filed by the PCB against the demolishing of the boundary wall by the Gulberg town administration in violation of a stay order.