Islamabad, Feb 21 (TNS): The ruling party PML-N faced another setback as the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday announced its verdict on petitions challenging the Elections Act 2017, ruling that a person disqualified under Article 62 and 63 cannot serve as the head of a political party.
The decision by the three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar is considered another blow to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N) as Nawaz Sharif will no longer remain the party’s president.
As a result of the verdict, all decisions taken by Nawaz Sharif as PML-N’s president stand null and void.
Elections Act 2017 was pushed through the upper and lower houses of the parliament earlier and had paved the way for Nawaz to resume his position as party president after being disqualified in the Panama Papers case. As a consequence, Senate tickets issued by Nawaz are also declared void, throwing the fate of March 3 Senate elections in doubt.
In the verdict read out by the chief justice, it was also stated that a party’s presidency is directly related to the parliament. Earlier today, the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar concluded the hearing of several petitions against the recently-passed Elections Act 2017.
A three-member bench had been hearing several petitions challenging specific clauses of the act that led to Nawaz Sharif’s appointment as party president following his dismissal as prime minister last year.
During hearing, the chief justice remarked that the country’s leadership is respectable, adding that the media misreported the court’s remarks.
Chief Justice Nisar also observed that there is no reason for the apex court to use words like ‘thief’ and ‘God father’, adding that the fallout of the issue is unacceptable.
