By Special Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: National Assembly (NA) Deputy Speaker Zahid Akram Durrani on Thursday prorogued the session of the lower house of the parliament amid efforts by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to Join National Assembly Proceedings.
Lack of quorum forced the House to prorogue. On the intimation of Jamaat-e-Islami’s MNA Moulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali, the deputy speaker asked to count the heads and the house was not in order. Before pointing out the quorum, Abdul Akbar Chitrali expressed his dismay over the absence of ministers and parliamentarians.
As many as 43 lawmakers of the PTI who were restored by the Lahore High Court as MNA a day earlier, were all set to show up in the house but the government seemed reluctant to face them. Earlier in the day, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said that the NA Secretariat had not yet received the Lahore High Court’s order in which the resignations of 43 PTI lawmakers was suspended as the PTI MNAs began arriving at the Parliament House.
The PTI resigned en masse from the National Assembly in April 2022. Initially, Ashraf stalled the process for months but later accepted the resignations earlier this year, following which the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) de-notified 123 MNAs including elected on reserved seats.
However, on Wednesday, Lahore High Court suspended the de-notification orders of 43 party MNAs and issued notices to the federal government and the electoral body.
PTI lawmakers whose resignations have been suspended are:
Rai Muhammad Murtaza Iqbal
Mian Muhammad Shafiq
Muhammad Farooq Azam Malik
Javed Iqbal Warakh
Muhammad Shabbir Ali Qureshi
Niaz Ahmed
Khwaja Sheraz Mehmood
Muhammad Riaz Khan Fatyana
Nasrullah Khan Dreshak
Tahir Sadiq
Zulfiqar Ali Khan
Haji Imtiaz Chowdry
Malik Muhammad Ehsan Ullah Tiwana
Raza Nasrullah
Muhammad Mehboob Sultan
Muhammad Ameer Sultan
Sardar Mohammad Khan Leghari
Rukhsana Naveed
Seemin Bukhari
Munaza Hassan
Syma Nadeem
Naureen Farooque Khan
Uzma Riaz
Shaheen Niaz Saifullah
Gul Zafar Khan
Nusrat Wahid
Fauzia Behram
Tashfeen Safdar
Lal Chand
Jai Parkash
Jamshed Thomas
Malik Anwar Taj
Mohammad Yaqoob Sheikh
Ghazala Saifi
Rubina Jamil
Nafeesa Inayatullah Khattak
Sajida Zulfiqar
Zile Huma
Shunila Ruth
Jawad Hussain
Rahat Amanullah Bhatti
Sobia Kamal Khan
Nausheed Hamid
PTI resignations
The PTI lawmakers had resigned en masse from the national assembly following the ouster of PTI chief Imran Khan in April 2022. Speaker NA Ashraf on July 28 last year accepted the resignations of only 11 PTI MNAs.
The PTI had challenged the “piecemeal acceptance” of the resignation in the Islamabad High Court, contesting that it was “unsustainable”. The court, however, had dismissed the petition on September 6 last year.
The party then approached the apex court, praying it to set aside the IHC order, terming it “vague, cursory, and against the law”. A decision on the PTI’s plea in the apex court is still pending.
