Islamabad (Web Desk): The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday challenged the verdict of Islamabad High Court (IHC) regarding phase-wise acceptance of the resignations of its members of national assembly(MNAs) in the Supreme Court (SC).
The IHC had declared former NA acting speaker Qasim Suri’s decision to accept resignations of PTI lawmakers unconstitutional.
Secretary General PTI Asad Umar has filed the petition, pleading the top court to reverse the incumbent Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s move to phase-wise accept the resignations of PTI lawmakers.
Last week, a high court bench headed by Chief Justice Athar Minallah declared Suri’s move unconstitutional, besides turning down a PTI plea to fix the case before a larger bench for hearing.
On April 11, all PTI MNAs resigned from the parliament en masse, two days after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted from his office through a no-confidence vote by the joint opposition.
Qasim Suri, who was serving as acting speaker at that time, accepted all the 123 resignation, serving a major blow to the new government.
However the newly elected NA SPeaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had decided to verify the resignations by calling the PTI lawmakers in his office.
As per the reports the NA Secretariat had expressed concerns over the authenticity of the resignations due to mismatched signatures of various MNAs on their resignations.
On July 27, NA speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted the resignations of 11 PTI lawmakers, including Dr Shireen Mazari, Farrukh Habib, Ali Muhammad Khan and Fakhar Zaman Khan.
Later the PTI moved the IHC, seeking approval for its lawmakers’ resignation in one go.