PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday directed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly speaker to swear in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Baldev Kumar, who is an accused in the murder case of PTI MPA Soran Singh.
Justice Qaiser Rasheed and Justice Muhammad Ayub during the hearing of the case on the plea of Kumar’s counsel who said that the assembly speaker was deliberately not taking oath from his client, directed the speaker to administer the oath to Kumar.
Kumar’s counsel told the court that the incumbent government’s term would end in a month but still the oath had not been administered.
To this, the provincial government’s counsel said an incomplete quorum in the assembly had been leading to a delay in the oath-taking.
However, the court directed the assembly speaker to administer oath from Kumar.
Earlier in March, PHC ruled that Senate elections will not take place in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly until Baldev Kumar took his oath.
Angry members of KP Assembly had broken the quorum of the house to block the administering of oath to Kumar, an accused in the murder of former KP Assembly lawmaker Sardar Suran Singh.
The KP Assembly speaker had adjourned the session for an indefinite period over lack of quorum after opposition and the treasury members staged a walkout in protest against the presence of Kumar in the house.
Baldev Kumar was facing trial at an anti-terrorism court in Peshawar over the murder of Soran Singh, the adviser to KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, who was assassinated in his native village in Buner on April 22, 2016.
Soran was elected to the provincial assembly on a minority seat. Kumar was second in the list of PTI’s candidates on a reserved seat for minorities.
