LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry on Friday dismissed an application for early hearing of Shumaila Rana’s petition seeking restoration of her Punjab Assembly membership, because there is a shortage of judges at LHC given the burden of pending cases.
Former MPA Shumaila Rana, accused of credit card theft, filed the application praying to the court for an early hearing, which had been pending in the court since mid 2010. The petitioner counsel requested the court to set aside assembly’s notification of her resignation, which was ‘forcibly’ taken by PML-N leadership during a theft accusation against her.
Court sources told Pakistan Today that LHC was overburdened by constitutional petitions of ‘sensitive nature’ besides a four-year backlog of civil and criminal cases of the general public. The civil and criminal appeals cases filed in 2004 were being heard now and new cases were being put in the waiting queue, they said.
SHORTAGE SCENARIO: LHC has only 28 judges at the moment while sanctioned strength of judges is 60 for LHC. The shortage of senior judges is another matter. Out of the 28 judges, 20 are additional (ad-hoc) judges while four senior ones being ‘PCO-tinted’ are non-functional. Thus, just four senior judges including chief justice himself are grappling with the huge backlog of cases including constitutional petitions like that of Shumaila Rana.
Earlier, in 2010 Justice Umar Ata Bandial had been hearing Shumaila Rana’s petition. In the petition, the lady stated that PML-N leaders including Saad Rafique took resignation from her under ‘duress’ and submitted it to the PA speaker without her consent. PA speaker, deputy speaker, secretary, PML-N Chairman Raja Zafar-ul-Haq and chief election commission made responses to the petition.
AS IT HAPPENED: Rana submitted that she was elected on reserved seat for women W-307 on ticket of PML-N and performed her duties honestly as MPA in the Punjab Assembly till a fake case brought hard time for her and her party also started harassing her. She submitted that on July 12, 2009, a fake case/FIR No 551/09 under section 329 PPC was registered against her on the application of Muqeetus Salaam, alleging she stole his credit cards.
She submitted that on March 3, 2010 she was acquitted by the trail court when proved innocent. She said her party men asked her to write a resignation under ‘duress’ on July 27, 2009 and when it was written it was ‘snatched’ from her and it was presented to the speaker on the same day ‘unlawfully’.
She submitted that speaker of the assembly accepted the resignation on same day without any inquiry or hearing while he is bound to made inquiry or hear a member personally under rule 135 of rules of procedure 1997 of the Punjab Assembly before accepting a member’s resignation. She said the notification of acceptance of resignation and vacating of the W-307 constituency was issued by the assembly on July 25.
