• Court assured about governor’s letter expressing inability to administer oath
• AG vows to challenge court jurisdiction

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ruled that Punjab Governor Umar Sarfraz Cheema cannot refuse administering oath to Chief Minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz and expects that President Arif Alvi will decide the matter in terms of Article 104 by nominating any person to administer the oath without further delay, after the advocate general informed the LHC that the governor would write to the president within 24 hours expressing his inability to administer the oath.

In an order passed on Friday on Mr Hamza’s petition against the delay by the governor in administering the oath to him in violation of Constitution, Chief Justice Mohammad Ameer Bhatti said: “It is expected from the President of Pakistan that he will resolve/decide the matter of nomination of any person in terms of Article 104 of the Constitution keeping in view the fact that people of the province of Punjab are already suffering on account of nonfunctional provincial government for the last 21 days, which as held in Mustafa Impex’s case by the honourable Supreme Court (PLD 2016 Supreme Court 808) consists of chief minister and cabinet.”

The LHC chief justice also expressed the hope that President Alvi would not wait for the letter from Mr Cheema, as the governor had no authority to exercise any other option except to ask the CM-elect under Article 130(5) of the Cons­titution to assume the office by administering oath.

When the matter came up for hearing before the court at 9:30am, Advocate General for Punjab Ahmad Awais informed the chief justice that Governor Cheema had asked him to tell the court about his “inability to administer the oath”. CM’s election had not been held as per Constitution while the session was also hit by violence, the lawyer argued, saying that a woman MPA was in coma after being injured in the house on the day of election. The CJ, however, observed that the court was very well aware of the election day happenings.

When the AG failed to provide anything in writing about Governor Cheema’s inability to administer the oath, the court granted him time till 11am for the production of a letter addressed to the president by the governor in this regard. After the break, the AG told the court that the governor had decided not to administer the oath but did not write the letter. After being granted another opportunity to obtain instructions from the governor about the time needed to write the letter, the AG assured the court that the letter expressing his (governor) inability to administer the oath would be dispatched to the president within 24 hours.

“Since the governor through AG has categorically informed this court regarding non-administering oath of the newly elected CM for the reason to be recorded in the letter addressed to the President of Pakistan, therefore, this court concludes that, in such eventuality, I deem it appropriate to direct my office to transmit this order through fax to the office of the President for its placement before the President of Pakistan for exercising the power provided under Article 104 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, for nomination of another person, keeping in view the peculiar circumstances, for administration of newly elected CM’s oath,” the CJ ordered.

Advocate Ashtar Ausaf appeared on behalf of Chief Minister-elect Hamza.

While turning down AG’s request to adjourn the hearing till Monday, the court disposed of the petition.

AG to challenge decision

Later, the AG told the media that the government would challenge the decision, arguing that the high court had no jurisdiction to issue any direction to president. He also said the president was not a party in the case.

Earlier in 2011, the LHC had passed a similar order in a matter relating to political activities by then president Asif Ali Zardari. “It is expected that the President of Pakistan would cease the use of the premises of presidency for political meetings of his party,” the order passed by a larger bench stated.

Later, the petitioner filed a contempt petition in the court, which was disposed of by a full bench in 2013 after the federation’s counsel maintained that then president Zardari had quit the office of PPP co-chairperson and also shunned political activities in the presidency.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2022