Islamabad: On Thursday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) sent notifications to Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the speaker of the National Assembly, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), as well as other parties in response to a PTI petition objecting to the accepting of its legislators’ resignations in the house “piecemeal.”
2 days after the former prime minister Imran Khan were dismissed from office following the success of a no-confidence resolution brought by the unified opposition in the house against him, all PTI legislators abruptly resigned on April 11.
Two dozen MNAs from the once ruling party approached Ashraf in April demanding a meet to clarify their position. Ashraf then made the decision to summon each of the 123 PTI legislators to confirm their resignations.
Many of the resignations filed by PTI MNAs just weren’t handwritten and had a similar language printed on the PTI’s letterhead, according to sources in the NA Secretariat. They claimed that the secretariat personnel had concerns about several members’ signatures since they did not line up with the names on the assembly’s roll.
A member may “by writing under his hand written to a speaker resign his position,” according the 2007 Procedure Rules and Conduct of Affairs in the National Assembly.
When PDM threatened mass resignations in 2020 when PTI was in charge, the former minister Sheikh Rashid asserted that printed resignations had no legal standing.
