The PTI challenged on Friday the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) order to recount the votes cast in the Punjab chief minister election held on April 16, excluding those cast by 25 dissident PTI lawmakers, in the Supreme Court.
The order was passed in line with the apex court’s interpretation of Article 63(A) on Thursday when LHC heard the PTI and the PML-Q’s pleas against Hamza Shehbaz’s election as Punjab CM.
According to the LHC, if Hamza does not secure 186 votes in the 371-member strong house to stay the CM, the election will be held again under Article 130(4) unless another candidate has majority votes.
Dawn reported that the province of Punjab, through the chief secretary, PA Deputy Speaker Sardar Dost Muhammad Mazari, the principal secretary to the Punjab Governor, the PA secretary, and Punjab CM Hamza have been made respondents in the case in the PTI’s plea.
Read more: Hamza Shehbaz’s election as CM Punjab declared void
Party members Mohammad Sibtain Khan, Zainab Umair. Mian Muhammad Aslam Iqbal, Syed Abbas Ali Shah, and Ahsan Saleem Bharyar asked the SC to modify the LHC order to the “extent of provision of adequate and sufficient time to hold [the Punjab Assembly] session” so that members could be issued notices and were able to “exercise their right to vote for the election of the Punjab chief minister in fair and transparent manner.”
The petitioners urged the court to remove Hamza Shehbaz as CM pending the election process and requested it to issue directives for holding a “free and fair” election for the province’s chief executive post.
They also requested the apex court to suspend the election process till the pendency of their petition.
And “since the 25 votes of defectors are admittedly not to be counted, there is no need to repeat that exercise of recounting and hence the notification issued for the chief minister is liable to be quashed as duly noted in the minority judgment,” the petition added.
With input from Dawn