ISLAMABAD: An hour before the start of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s rally from Islamabad to Lahore on Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) dismissed a petition of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) seeking to stop the rally.
A single bench of the IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq declared the petition non-maintainable. Earlier on Tuesday, the court had reserved its verdict on the maintainability of the plea after hearing arguments of the petitioner, Usman Saeed Basra. Justice Aamer Farooq noted that under which laws the court might stop the rally. He also had observed that a major part of the rally had to take place in Punjab, which was beyond the court’s jurisdiction. The petitioner, however, had contended that the rally was an effort to undermine the authority of the Supreme Court and pressurise the accountability court, which was set to hear the National Accountability Bureau’s references against Nawaz Sharif and his family. He had maintained that since the Supreme Court in its July 28 verdict disqualified Nawaz Sharif as MNA, he and members of his party were maligning the apex court by terming the ouster a ‘conspiracy’.
He had contended that to incite public anger, Nawaz Sharif and his party had decided to lead a public rally from Islamabad to Lahore. He had stated that this act was tantamount to subvert and undermine the authority of the judiciary and thus an attack on the independence of judiciary. The petitioner prayed the court to direct the federal government, Islamabad Capital Administration (ICT) and the Punjab government to stop this rally. Meanwhile, the same bench also dismissed another petition filed by Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) seeking ban on Nawaz Sharif’s rally and cancelling registration of PML-N from the Election Commission of Pakistan. The court declared that the plea was not maintainable.
On the maintainability of this plea too, the verdict was reserved on Tuesday. The PAT lawyer pleaded that since the Supreme Court had disqualified Nawaz Sharif, he could not run the affairs of the party under Political Parties Order 2002. He prayed the court to order the ECP to cancel the registration of the PML-N, as it was in the name of disqualified Nawaz Sharif. While dismissing the petition as non-maintainable, the court observed that the petitioner could approach the
proper forum.
Published in Daily Times, August 10th 2017.
