LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday issued notices to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Jahangir Tareen and the federal government on a petition submitted against the former for convening and chairing an official meeting of top government officials despite being disqualified for life.
The petition, filed by a local lawyer Shoaib Saleem, pleaded that Tareen was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2017 for being not “Sadiq and Amin” under Article 62(1)(F) of the Constitution and Section 99 of the Representation of People Act (ROPA). It further stated that “it was an open secret that Tareen has been involved in lobbying for making of the government, whether provincial or the federal, and participated in various meetings held at the Prime Minister Secretariat illegally and unlawfully”.
The petitioner further said that a disqualified person has no legal and constitutional directive to sit in such meetings following the SC’s verdict.
“The media widely reported that a disqualified person held a key meeting of top government officials which also raised many questions in the minds of the public at large regarding the sanctity of court orders,” Saleem said in his petition, adding that Tareen had also given orders during the meeting.
He further requested the court to summon Tareen and seek an explanation regarding the meeting, asking the court to “permanently restrain the prime minister from allowing Tareen’s participation in any meetings from here on”.
Following this, the court issued notices to Tareen and the federal government and adjourned the hearing till December 4.
Earlier, on September 13, the former parliamentarian had convened a meeting of the Livestock Emergency Working Group that had been assigned to develop a concrete plan to deliver on the prime minister’s commitment to revamping the livestock sector under the ‘Uplift Agriculture and Conserve Water’ theme of the new government’s 100-day agenda.
According to a report, the first meeting of the working group was held at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat with Tareen as convener along with a representative from public and private sectors.
Special Assistant to the PM on Media Affairs Iftikhar Durrani had earlier claimed to have no knowledge of such a meeting and sources close to Tareen were also unaware on the matter. However, a member of the meeting confirmed his presence.
