LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday sought a reply from Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman by February 9 on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)\u2019s plea demanding the date for elections following the dissolution of the provincial assembly.
\nJustice Jawad Hassan was hearing the plea filed by PTI\u2019s General Secretary Asad Umar demanding the governor to immediately announce the date to ensure election within 90 days of the dissolution of Punjab Assembly.<\/p>\n
As the proceedings commenced, the lawyer representing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) expressed willingness to hold elections but said that a new development had occurred a day earlier following a letter from the principal secretary to the governor, wherein it was stated that the country was facing an economic crisis. To this, Justice Hassan remarked there had been worse economic conditions in the past but even then elections were conducted, observing that there are several judgments that say elections are to be held within the stipulated time frame.<\/p>\n
PTI\u2019s lawyer Barrister Ali Zafar argued that the electoral watchdog was putting the responsibility of giving an election date on the governor while Rehman was putting it on the ECP. On this remark, the commission\u2019s lawyer argued they \u201care ready for elections but have just informed the court about the recent letter they received\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeave the governor\u2019s letter aside and announce the election date,\u201d ordered Justice Hassan, inquiring what the ambiguity was when the Constitution was \u201cvery clear over holding elections after the dissolution of an assembly\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his remarks, Additional Attorney General Nasar Ahmad argued that there was sufficient time and that \u201cwe are not refusing to hold elections\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the lawyer representing the governor of Punjab took the rostrum and requested the court to grant them a week\u2019s time to express their objections in detail.<\/p>\n
Petitioner Asad Umar then raised a question, saying \u201cit is astonishing that the ECP received a letter over economic crises in relation to elections in Punjab but have issued a schedule for holding by-elections on vacant seats of the National Assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court will see everything in light of the Constitution,\u201d the judge remarked. During the proceedings, Justice Jawad also hinted at contacting the LHC chief justice for constituting a full bench to hear the plea. However, lawyers representing the PTI and ECP did not agree to the proposal. Subsequently, Justice Hassan sought a reply from Governor Rehman by February 9 after the lawyer representing him sought time arguing they have some objections over the demand for the date of elections. It is pertinent to note that on January 30, the LHC had sought replies from the ECP and principal secretary to Punjab governor by February 3 (today).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday sought a reply from Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman by February 9 on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)\u2019s plea demanding the date for elections following the dissolution of the provincial assembly. Justice Jawad Hassan was hearing the plea filed by PTI\u2019s General Secretary Asad Umar demanding the governor to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113061,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113059\/revisions\/113061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/113060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}