CJ IHC Athar Minallah declares Qasim Suri’s acceptance of PTI MNAs’ resignations ‘unconstitutional’
ISLAMABAD, Sep 06 (SABAH): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday declared the acceptance of PTI lawmakers’ resignations by National Assembly’s former acting speaker Qasim Khan Suri as unconstitutional.
The court issued the orders while hearing a petition filed by PTI leader Farrukh Habib challenging the allegedly piece-meal acceptance of resignations by incumbent NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah also rejected a plea by PTI counsel Faisal Chaudhry to process the case before a larger bench for hearing.
All the PTI lawmakers had resigned en masse on April 11, two days after former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted from the top office after the no-confidence motion moved by the joint opposition in the parliament against him succeeded.
Former deputy speaker and acting speaker of the lower house of the parliament Suri had on April 15 accepted the resignations of 123 PTI lawmakers.
Later in April, Ashraf decided to verify the resignations of the 123 PTI lawmakers, by calling them individually or in small groups as some two dozen MNAs belonging to the formerly ruling party approached him seeking a meeting to clarify their stance, according to a report in Dawn.
Sources in the NA Secretariat had confirmed that a majority of the resignations submitted by the PTI MNAs were not handwritten and had a similar text printed on the PTI’s letterhead. They said the secretariat staff also had doubts over the signatures of some members as these were not matching with those on the assembly’s roll.
According to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007, a member may “by writing under his hand addressed to the speaker resign his seat”.
In 2020, when PTI was in power, former minister Sheikh Rashid had said that printed resignations held no legal value when PDM was threatening en masse resignations.
On July 27, the NA speaker accepted the resignations of 11 lawmakers of the party.
Ali Muhammad Khan, Fazal Muhammad Khan, Shaukat Ali, Fakhar Zaman Khan, Farrukh Habib, Jamil Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Akram Cheema, Abdul Shakoor Shad, Dr Shireen Mazari, Shandana Gulzar Khan and Ijaz Ahmed Shah are the MNAs who have been denotified from their seats.
Subsequently, the party approached IHC earlier this week seeking approval for all the PTI’s MNAs’ resignations and their denotification.
During the proceedings on Tuesday, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah remarked that “our decision on the matter already exists; we had ruled that we will not intervene in political matters”, while adding that only the NA speaker could settle the issue. “The courts cannot do anything,” he observed.
Advocate Faisal Chaudhry in response accepted that the court has “never interfered in parliamentary affairs” and added that “we also respect the Parliament but it cannot be that they accept resignations in phases”. “If they are to accept them, then they must accept all 123 resignations at once,” he said.
However, the court observed that “at the time 34 members had resigned”, but the PTI lawyer said that Suri at the time was serving as the acting speaker when he accepted the 123 resignations and “not a single member challenged it”.
CJ Minallah nonetheless held that the court “will not give instructions to the speaker”. He also observed that Speaker Ashraf had called “each member and accepted their resignations. Deputy Speaker [Suri] did not follow the rules of accepting resignations. He should have called every member and asked them separately”. The IHC judge also told the PTI lawyer to take the party’s request to the NA Speaker.
“He is a minority Speaker, we don’t go to him,” the advocate responded, upon this the court said that, “You need to change your mindset and respect the Parliament”.
“Surely, the Speaker would have accepted the 11 resignations after satisfying any doubts. This confidence of the Speaker cannot be challenged in court,” the judge added.
“Send any member to the Speaker, there should be no hesitation in that,” CJ Minallah continued.
“We have reservations, that is why we have come to court,” retorted Faisal Chaudhry.
“The deputy speaker could not have accepted the resignations collectively, contrary to the Constitution and the court’s decision. It is an admitted fact that the deputy speaker did not approve the en masse resignations in the prescribed manner,” the CJ remarked.
“Everyone is bound before the Constitution and law,” he added as he told the PTI counsel that each resigning member should appear before the speaker individually and confirm their resignation.
The PTI lawyer still pleaded that the then deputy speaker had accepted the party members’ resignations on which the court remarked that Suri’s notification was unconstitutional.
It may be noted here that on April 7 in a landmark unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court had set aside NA Deputy Speaker Suri’s ruling to dismiss the no-trust resolution against Prime Minister Imran Khan and the subsequent dissolution of the lower house of parliament by President Arif Alvi on the premier’s advice.
“The ruling of the deputy speaker of the NA in relation to the resolution for a vote of no-confidence against the prime minister under Article 95 of the Constitution are declared to be contrary to the Constitution and the law and of no legal effect, and the same are hereby set aside,” the top court had said in its short order.
As the IHC rejected former acting speaker Suri’s notification regarding the PTI MNAs’ resignations unconstitutional on Tuesday, the party’s lawyer argued that “if elections are to be held, they should be conducted in all 123 constituencies”.
However, dismissing the PTI’s petition, CJ Athar Minallah reminded the lawyer that elections were an expensive endeavor. “It is not good to resign whenever you feel like it and then go on and contest elections,“ the IHC CJ stated.