LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti will hear on Tuesday (today) a petition of Punjab Chief Minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz, seeking a direction to the Senate chairman to administer oath to him (petitioner).

Hamza, in his fresh petition, stated that President Dr Arif Alvi and Punjab Governor Umar Sarfraz Cheema despite an order passed by the high court failed to decide the matter of his oath and opted to toe their party line at the cost of violation of the Constitution.

He said the unwillingness of the governor and the president to abide by the constitutional obligations had led to the only possible headway of exercising extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction of the LHC under Article 255 of the Constitution.

He contended that it was evident that the governor and the president were not ready to obey the court order, therefore, it was imperative that a person be nominated by the court in order to protect the Constitution and to enforce its provisions with full force.

Governor’s letter to president reaches PM office; IGP challenges show-cause notice by PA secretary

The petitioner submitted that the conduct of the governor and the president was contemptuous and tantamount to implications of Article 6 of the constitution.

However, Hamza said he did not want to press these provisions for the time being and would resort to such lawful actions at a later appropriate time.

The petitioner asked the court to order the chairman of the senate to administer him the oath of his office of the chief minister.

On April 22, the LHC, in a petition of Hamza, ruled that the governor could not refuse oath to a newly-elected chief minister of a province and expected that the president would nominate any person to administer oath to Chief Minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz without a delay.

Meanwhile, the April 23 letter addressed to President Dr Arif Alvi by the governor, explaining constitutional reasons for not administering oath of the purportedly elected chief minister of Punjab, has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on Monday.

Earlier, the Lahore High Court order dated April 22 in the Writ Petition No. 24320/2022 has also been sent to the PM’s Secretariat on April 22 for necessary process as per the Constitution and law, says a press release by the president’s office.

IGP MOVES COURT: The inspector general of Punjab police has approached the Lahore High Court challenging a show-cause notice issued by the Punjab Assembly secretary in the wake of the violence took place in a session held to elect a new chief minister.

The IGP filed a petition through Additional IG (legal) Muhammad Saleem contended the respondent had no jurisdiction to issue the impugned show-cause notice.

The petitioner stated the IGP had managed the security in the assembly session on the directions of the high court. He said the deputy speaker had also issued instructions to the police to ensure security of the assembly.

He asked the court to set aside the show-cause notice issued by the assembly secretary being unlawful and unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, a sessions court granted pre-arrest bail to Punjab Assembly Secretary Muhammad Khan Bhatti in a case of attacking Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari and ransacking the assembly during a last week session to elect new chief minister.

The court restrained the police from arresting Bhatti till May 11. Qila Gujjar Singh police had registered a case against the assembly secretary and several MPAs belonging to the previous government coalition.

MPAs including Ammar Yasir, Shahbaz Ahmad, Mahindar Singh, Waris Aziz, Khayal Ahmad, Shujaat Nawaz, Ali Raza Khan Khaqwani, Umar Farooq and Malik Nadeem Abbas had already been granted bail.

PA Secretary Bhatti is believed to be close to Speaker Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as the latter had promoted the former to BS-22 grade last year.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2022