Lahore: Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Saturday that judges who removed PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif from office should not hear cases involving the party. This came as coalition partners hardened their stance in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Hamza Shehbaz to continue serving as Punjab chief minister in a “trustee” capacity.
The minister was apparently referring to Justice Ijazul Ahsan, who is a member of the three-judge panel hearing Chaudhry Parvez Elahi’s appeal against Hamza’s reelection and who was also a member of the five-judge apex court panel that, in a landmark decision on the Panama Papers case in 2017, barred the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from holding public office.
In a media interview, the interior minister made a similar request to the chief justice to set up full benches to handle party-related issues, which was echoed by the other members of the ruling coalition. He added that the decision in favour of Hamza Shehbaz made by the deputy speaker of the Punjab Assembly on Friday was not influenced by Chaudhry Shujaat’s letter but rather by a Supreme Court decision.
Since the vote on Friday, Chaudhry Shujaat’s letter has been a source of controversy because it appears to have urged PML-Q legislators to support Hamza Shehbaz, which led Deputy Speaker Dost Mohammad Mazari to reject 10 votes from the party for deviating from the party line.
The interior minister took a shot at PTI chief Imran Khan, accusing him of misleading the country “through lies and baseless propaganda.” Mr. Khan had been claiming for the last three days that his men were being bought, but his claims were exposed by the votes cast in the Punjab Assembly for the election of the chief minister because not a single member of either side voted against their party.
