LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Thursday allowed 18 MPAs of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to attend the Punjab Assembly sessions and vote, if needed, till Jan 19, 2023.

Previously, the court had permitted the MPAs to participate and vote in a session summoned by the governor requiring Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi to obtain a vote of confidence.

Advocate Mansoor Usman Awan appeared before the court on behalf of the MPAs and stated that the petitioners also wanted to attend the assembly sessions likely to be convened to take up no confidence motions against the chief minister, the speaker and the deputy speaker.

The counsel asked the court to extend the interim relief already granted to the petitioners.

The court allowed the civil miscellaneous applications by the petitioners and allowed them to attend and vote, if required, in the sessions of the assembly till Jan 19.

The petitioners including Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan, Saba Sadiq and other MPAs were barred by speaker Sibtain Khan from attending 15 sittings of the assembly through two different orders issued on July 7 and Oct 23.

The counsel argued that the petitioners being elected members of the assembly had an inalienable right to participate in the sessions. They argued that the law provided a ban for 15 days only but the speaker unlawfully imposed a ban on the petitioners for attending 15 sittings of the assembly. They asked the court to suspend the impugned decisions of the speaker regarding the ban on the participation of the MPAs in the assembly sessions for being unconstitutional.

The judge had suspended the impugned decisions of the speaker allowing the petitioners to participate and vote, if needed, in the session of the assembly summoned by the governor requiring the chief minister to secure a vote of confidence, however, the session has not been held so far.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2022