PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday extended its stay order against by-elections in 24 National Assembly constituencies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and gave more time to the assembly’s speaker and Election Commission of Pakistan to file response on the matter.

A bench consisting of Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim fixed April 18 for next hearing into two identical petitions filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s 24 former MNAs from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa against the acceptance of their resignations by the NA speaker and their subsequent de-notification by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

It declared that the stay order issued on the previous date would continue to be effective until the next hearing.

The bench directed the respondents, including the NA speaker and the ECP, to file their respective replies to the petitions before the next hearing.

Gives more time to NA speaker, ECP for response on matter

Polling for those 24 seats was previously scheduled for March 16 and March 19, respectively.

Advocate Mohsin Kamran appeared for the ECP and sought more time for submitting the reply.

Advocate Bilal Khalil appeared for the petitioners in the absence of lead counsel Barrister Gohar Khan.

The petitioners requested the court to set aside four notifications issued by the NA speaker and the ECP on the matter.

They prayed the court to declare the speaker’s act of accepting their resignations a violation of the law in line with the Supreme Court judgements.

One of the petitions was filed by eight of the ex-MNAs whose resignations were accepted by the speaker on Jan 17. The ECP de-notified them the same day.

The petitioners include former NA speaker Asad Qaiser, six former federal ministers Pervez Khattak, Murad Saeed, Omar Ayub Khan, Ali Amin Khan, Noorul Haq Qadri and Sheharyar Afridi and former MNA Imran Khattak.

The other petition was jointly filed by 16 ex-MNAs, whose resignations were accepted by the NA speaker on Jan 20. The ECP de-notified them the same day.

The petitioners claimed that the NA speaker had unlawfully accepted the resignations of 35 MNAs and issued a notification for it on Jan 17, while resignations of 35 other MNAs were accepted on Jan 20.

Meanwhile, one of the petitioners, Arbab Sher Ali Khan, a former MNA from Peshawar, told reporters that he and other ex-MNAs looked to the judiciary for “justice.”

He said that the petitioners had serious concerns about tensions outside PTI chairman Imran Khan’s Lahore house due to the police’s “excesses” against party workers.

“Imran Khan and party workers are our assets. I, along with supporters, will leave for Lahore to provide protection to them,” he said.

Mr Khan condemned the police’s “brutalities” against “unarmed” PTI workers in Lahore and said such tactics couldn’t cow down the party’s activists.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2023