The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday barred National Assembly speaker and Senate chairman from appointing leaders of the opposition in their respective houses following the denotification of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Omar Ayub and Shibli Faraz from the top parliamentary positions.
Hearing a petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to denotify Ayub and Faraz, PHC’s two-member bench comprising Justice Arshad Ali and Justice Khurshid Iqbal also prohibited the electoral body from taking further action against the opposition party’s politicians.
The court adjourned the hearing till August 15.
The development comes after the ECP, last week, de-notified nine PTI lawmakers, including Ayub and Faraz, following their convictions in the May 9 cases.
The list included Ayub (MNA from NA-18 Haripur), Rai Hassan Nawaz (MNA from NA-143 Sahiwal-III), Zartaj Gul (MNA from NA-185 DG Khan-II), Rai Haider Ali (MNA from NA-96 Faisalabad-II), and Sahibzada Hamid Raza (MNA from NA-104 Faisalabad-X) from the lower house of parliament.
Separately, an anti-terrorism court in Lahore has ordered the confiscation of properties belonging to four senior PTI leaders: Dr. Yasmin Rashid, Omar Sarfraz Cheema, Mian Mahmood-ur-Rasheed, and Ejaz Chaudhry.
