The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Friday suspended a notification for by-elections on 24 National Assembly seats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which was previously scheduled to be held on March 16 and 19, respectively.
Twenty-four former MNAs from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had on Feb 23 filed a plea in the PHC against the acceptance of their resignations by the National Assembly speaker and their subsequent de-notification by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
These petitioners include former NA speaker Asad Qaiser, five ex-federal ministers Pervez Khattak, Murad Saeed, Omar Ayub Khan, Ali Amin Khan and Sheharyar Afridi and ex-MNA Imran Khattak.
As many as 123 PTI MNAs had resigned en masse from the lower house of Parliament following the ouster of PTI chief Imran Khan in April last year in a vote of no confidence.
The former lawmakers filed two identical petitions with the court requesting it to set aside four notifications issued by the NA speaker and the ECP on the matter.
They had also sought interim relief seeking suspension of those notifications and orders for the ECP not to hold by-polls in their constituencies until the disposal of their petitions. The petitioners had also requested the court to declare the speaker’s act of accepting their resignations a violation of the law in line with Supreme Court judgements.
The ECP has already announced the schedule for the by-polls to fill vacant seats and polling in the 24 constituencies will be held on March 16 and 19, respectively.
On March 16, the polling will be held on six seats, which are: NA-4 Swat, NA-17 Haripur, NA-18 Swabi, NA-25 Nowshera, NA-26 Nowshera, NA-32 Kohat, NA-38 DI Khan and NA-43 Khyber.
On March 19, the constituencies where polling will be held include NA-2 Swat, NA-3 Swat, NA-5 Upper Dir, NA-6 Lower Dir, NA-7 Lower Dir, NA-8 Malakand, NA- 9 Buner, NA-16 Abbottabad, NA-19 Swabi, NA-20 Mardan, NA-29 Peshawar, NA-30 Peshawar, NA-34 Karak, NA-40 Bajaur, NA-42 Mohmand and NA-44 Khyber.
