LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday gave last opportunity to the federal government and the Senate’s chairman to file replies by April 20 in connection with a writ petition seeking disqualification of Rehman Malik as senator on the basis of his removal from service. Mahfooz Ahmad, a local, moved the petition in which he submitted that Rehman Malik was removed from service in Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in 1998 and as he was not eligible to be elected as a senator.
On Tuesday, Rehman Malik submitted a reply pleading there was no legal justification to hear the case as the president of Pakistan had already converted his removal from service into retirement. He prayed the court to dismiss the petition.On the previous hearing, Justice Shiekh Azmat Saeed had referred the matter to the chief justice (CJ) to constitute a larger bench on which CJ formed a two-member bench, adding Justice Mansoor Ali Shah to the bench.
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also appraised the court through a written reply that no one raised any objection at the time of filing Rehman’s nomination papers for the Senate’s seat. The court was told that ECP acted in accordance with the law.
About the federal government’s reply, Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Ilyas Khan said he was assigned the task of pleading case only a couple of days ago after the removal of Naveed Inayat Malik.
He sought time to obtain reply from the federal government. In pursuance of the court’s order, former DAG Naveed Inayat Malik had produced the copy of notification under which Rehman’s removal from services was converted into retirement. The petitioner had also challenged the notification, which converted the removal of Rehman Malik into retirement, pleading that the president had no authority to issue such notification. He requested the court to set aside impugned notification and de-seat respondent from the Senate.
Remove Malik from the Senate: petition filed
