PTI leader Shakoor Shad claims that he did not resign from his NA seat and asked that the election schedule be immediately halted.
Shakoor Shad of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) contested the acceptance of a resignation from his National Assembly seat before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday, alleging he did not resign from his seat.
Shad claimed that the resignation letter was created by a computer operator at the PTI headquarters and signed by 123 members in a constitutional petition submitted through attorney Akhtar Cheema. He contended that the letter lacked a name or date and did not address the lower house speaker.
According to the appeal, the PTI claimed that the resignations were made for “political objectives” and as a show of support for Imran Khan, the party’s leader.
Additionally, it claimed that the resignation’s approval went against the 2015 ruling by Justice Athar Minallah. The court has ruled that resignation must be made voluntarily, of one’s own free will, and with the intention of giving up one’s seat.
According to the PTI leader’s appeal, the Senate Chairperson Raza Rabbani’s judgement from 2015 stated that the speaker’s oath was broken when the PTI MNA’s resignation was accepted.
The constitutional petition asked for the immediate suspension of the election timetable and the nullification of the notification of his seat being vacated.
Previously, a PTI petition asking for the party’s lawmakers to be seated in the National Assembly all at once was rejected by the Islamabad High Court. The petitioner claimed that the incumbent speaker lacks the authority to postpone the acceptance of resignations and claimed that the then-deputy speaker Qasim Suri had accepted the resignations.
Read More: IHC rejects PTI’s plea to accept all resignations at once