LAHORE: In an effort to remove a ‘friendly-opposition tag’, the Pakistan People’s Party has decided to take on the PML-N by filing a number of petitions in courts challenging speakers of the national and provincial assemblies for not accepting resignations of PTI members.

“We have decided to file writ petitions in the Lahore High Court and other courts with respect to all such constituencies from where the PTI MNAs and MPAs have tendered resignations, but speakers are not accepting them on one pretext or the other.

The speakers’ act is unconstitutional and amounts to negation of the right of the constituents to be represented in assemblies through their chosen representatives,” PPP’s Punjab senior-vice president Haider Zaman Qureshi told Dawn here on Monday.

Mr Qureshi, also a Supreme Court advocate, said once a member of parliament resigned under the Constitution his/her constituency could not be left unrepresented for more than 60 days.

“The PPP also wants to highlight the dual policy of the PTI to avail themselves of salaries and benefits and at the same time claim to be not part of assemblies. PML-N government’s policy not to accept resignations thus leaving the respective areas unrepresented amounted to punishing the people who voted for the PTI and the PML-N,” he said.

Failure to accept resignations of PTI members

The PPP has filed first such petition in the LHC through Advocate Mubeenuddin Qazi against the Punjab Assembly speaker and a PTI MPA from PP-45, Mianwali.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah on Monday issued notices to the speaker, the Election Commission of Pakistan and the PTI MPA for Oct 9.

The petitioner pleaded as to why the constitutional provisions were being flouted just to achieve a “preset political agenda” of the parties and the people were being punished by keeping them unrepresented through their chosen representatives.

The PPP counsel said despite a lapse of almost one month not only the speakers were “illegally” sitting over resignations of PTI members for political consideration but they had also started demanding and compelling the members to withdraw their resignations.

“Thereby, the speakers have not only failed to perform their constitutional and legal obligation of notifying the resignations in the official gazette and transmitting the same to the ECP for declaration of the seats as vacant and announcing the schedule of by-election in those constituencies but are also raising illegal and unconstitutional demand of withdrawal of resignations,” the PPP’s counsel said.

Published in Dawn, September 30th , 2014