Ashraf claims that the LHC order suspending PTI MNAs has not been received, hence the NA speaker has put off any future plans regarding the resignation of PTI legislators till the court notice is received.
Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the speaker of the National Assembly, claimed on Thursday that he had not yet received the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) order suspending the denotification of lawmakers from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and he insisted that any subsequent course of action would be decided only after receiving the order.
The speaker can be seen in a video that was shared on Twitter by the NA’s official account responding to a query about his opinions regarding rumours that some PTI MNAs may be interested in returning to the lower house.
Speaker Ashraf stated that “no order has yet been received by us from the LHC; it is not before us, it is not available for us to read, and no specifics have been given with us on the topic.”
“We haven’t yet gotten a notice that we have been included to the case; we only know about it from media sources. Thus, I think we will decide what our future course of action should be once the verdict is obtained and we have an opportunity to study it and discuss it with our specialists “Added he.
It should be mentioned that the PTI submitted mass resignations in protest following Imran Khan’s ouster as prime minister in April of last year.
While the previous deputy speaker Qasim Suri had already begun the phase-by-phase procedure of accepting the resignations, the current speaker Ashraf insisted that each member declare their resignation in person.
After months of waiting, the resignations of the final batch of PTI MNAs were finally accepted in January. However, the parliamentarians afterwards contested the resignations, alleging the MPs had retracted their request and never in-person confirmed the resignation.
The speaker’s and the ECP’s denotification had been suspended by the LHC on Wednesday, and it had requested responses from the relevant authorities.
