KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday issued notices to the Election Commission of Pakistan and others on an application filed by nine former MNAs of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf from Karachi seeking a restraining order against the March 16 by-polls.

The counsel for the ex-lawmakers moved the application for urgent hearing of their civil miscellaneous application (CMA) for grant of ad-interim stay order against by-elections scheduled to be held on March 16 in their constituencies.

The two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh and Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed took up the matter and issued notices to the ECP and other respondents for March 7.

The petitioners in the CMA submitted that the by-polls were set to be held on March 16 whereas the next hearing of their petition was fixed for March 21, rendering such petition infructuous and, therefore, they asked for urgent hearing of the matter.

They said in the application: “The Chief Justice of Pakistan advised the PTI lawmakers to return to the National Assembly during the hearing of CPLA 3060/2022 against the decision of Hon’ble High Court dated 6.9.2022 passed in writ petition No.2892/2022”.

It may be recalled that nine former PTI lawmakers Faheem Khan, Aftab Siddiqui, Ali Haider Zaidi, Saif-ur-Rehman Khan, Attaullah, Aftab Jahangir, Najeeb Haroon, Mohammad Aslam Khan and Alamgir Khan had petitioned the SHC against the acceptance of their resignations by the National Assembly speaker.

They impugned both notifications issued by the speaker and the ECP on Jan 17 and asserted that the same were unlawful and in violation of several constitutional provisions.

The petitioners had asked the SHC to declare the impugned notifications unlawful and illegal and also pleaded to stay the March 16 by-polls in their constituencies.

However, on Feb 28 the SHC bench only issued notices on the main petition to the ECP and other respondents as well as a federal law officer for March 21.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2023