LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday accepted a petition demanding that prime minister’s election be declared unconstitutional on the basis that 69 members of the National Assembly (NA) abstained from voting during the electoral session.
Advocate Sheikh Zaid Mahmood, a local lawyer, had moved the petition on August 31 through senior lawyer AK Dogar maintaining that it was mandatory under Clause 91(4) of the Constitution that every member of the National Assembly (NA) must cast his vote to the person nominated for the election of prime minister.
The petitioner had said two parliamentary parties consisting of 69 votes preferred to sit in the NA but abstained from voting. Both Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) failed to participate in the process of the forming of the federal government. The chosen representatives of the people cannot abstain themselves from casting the votes, he had said.
The petitioner had said it was their constitutional duty to exercise their right to vote. The petitioner also made PPP and JI as respondents in the petition, saying that neither they said “yes” nor they said “no” which was constitutionally not allowed.
He had asked the court to declare that every member of the National Assembly (NA) must fulfil the constitutional duty to elect the leader of the house and chief executive of the country. He had further requested the LHC to declare that Imran Khan, the incumbent prime minister, was elected unconstitutionally due to the absence of the votes of the total membership of the NA.