PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday sought comments from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly’s speaker and provincial government on a petition of arrested MPA-elect Baldev Kumar against the non-issuance of his production order to take oath of his office in the assembly.

Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Shakeel Ahmad issued the order after hearing preliminary arguments of Mohib Jan Salarzai, lawyer for Baldev Kumar, who was arrested last year in connection with the murder of Sardar Soran Singh, the MPA elected on the minorities’ seat.

Being on Serial No 2 on the priority list of candidates submitted by the ruling PTI for seats reserved for minorities, the petitioner was declared returned candidate on the said vacant seat by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The respondents in the petition are speaker of the KP Assembly; secretary of the KP Assembly; ECP; provincial election commissioner of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; and KP government through law secretary.

Baldev Kumar had challenged non-issuance of his production order for oath-taking in house

The petitioner requested the court to issue directives to the KP Assembly speaker to issue an order for the production of the petitioner in the KP Assembly for taking oath as MPA elected on a seat reserved for minorities.

Lawyer Mohib Jan said his client was a PTI leader and belonged to minority Hindu community. He said during the 2013 general elections, Sardar Soran Singh was elected MPA on the seat reserved for minorities, and was also appointed adviser to the chief minister, but was killed on Apr 22, 2016, with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militant outfit accepting responsibility for the killing.

The lawyer claimed that being an untraced case, the local police instead of making efforts to arrest the real culprits implicated his client and arrested him in the case as he was at Serial No 2 on the priority list of candidates for the minorities’ seat in the assembly.

He said the ECP declared the petitioner MPA-elect on the vacant seat on Aug 23, 2016 promoting the petitioner to request the KP Assembly speaker time and again to issue his production order so that he could take oath of his office, but to no avail.

The lawyer said the inaction of the speaker was illegal, against the constitutional provisions, based on mala fide and in violation of his oath.

He said his client was legally and constitutionally elected member of the KP Assembly under Article 106(3) of the Constitution and was duly notified by the ECP.

He added that not only the petitioner had been deprived of his fundamental rights but large number of members of minority communities had been deprived of their representation in the KP Assembly.

The lawyer claimed that the petitioner was still a loyal and dedicated PTI worker and had never deviated from the party’s policies nor had he ever been disqualified from holding any public office.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2017