ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Monday filed a petition in Islamabad High Court (IHC) against acceptance of the resignation of its 11 members of the National Assembly (MNAs) terming it “piecemeal” and requested the court to direct the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to de-notify all 123 MNAs.

The petition cited Speaker National Assembly, the ECP, the secretary Cabinet Division and former deputy speaker Qasim Khan Suri as respondents.

It said after the regime change, the PTI leadership decided to tender resignation from the National Assembly since it was seeking a fresh mandate from the people of Pakistan.

It said that in pursuant to the decision of a meeting of the parliamentary party held in Parliament House on April 11, 2022, as many as 123 MNAs tendered resignation before the deputy speaker which had been accepted.

However, the incumbent NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf withheld these resignations and did not forward it to the ECP on the pretext of “so-called verification of the resignation”.

It added: “Now after the lapse of around three and half months, the speaker NA approved the resignation of only 11 MNAs of the PTI” and forwarded these to the ECP which has de-notified them.

“The impugned act of the so called verification of resignation of PTI MNAs conducted by the present speaker of the National Assembly and his purported approval of the resignations and forwarding the same to the ECP in a piecemeal manner, despite the fact that all the 123 resignations of the PTI MNAs had already been accepted on April 11 by the then speaker, as well as the impugned act of the ECP to de-notify the PTI members in the piecemeal manner, are unsustainable,” the petition added.

It requested the court to direct the speaker NA to approve all the PTI MNAs’ resignation. The petition requested that the direction be given to the ECP to de-notify these members.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2022