Amraiz Khan Lahore
Lahore High Court has accepted chief minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz plea for his oath-taking after the petitioner removed the objection raised by the court registrar. Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti said that court will take up the petition on Thursday.
The LHC registrar office Wednesday objected again to the petition of Hamza Shehbaz for his oath-taking, this time for making Punjab governor a respondent and not pinning a copy of former chief minister Usman Buzdar’s resignation to the petition.
Judicial sources in LHC said that the lawyers for Hamza Shehbaz had accelerated efforts for getting all objections removed and having the petition fixed for hearing. They succeeded in their efforts as they made the secretary to the governor as respondent instead of the governor.
It is worth mentioning here that earlier CM-elect Hamza Shehbaz in his petition had made Punjab governor and chief secretary as respondents in. It was stated in the petition that the resignation of former chief minister Usman Buzdar had been accepted on April 1, and since then, the Chief Minister’s office has been lying vacant.
The petition also stated that it was a constitutional convention for the governor to call the elected chief minister and administer oath to him, adding violation of constitutional conventions was in fact a deviation from the Constitution itself. It also alleged that a constitutional crisis was being created in Punjab which was against the parliamentary democracy and the spirit of the Constitution, adding the governor’s office was a symbol of federation and unity and the governor’s job was to protect the Constitution.
“In the written Constitution, the governor does not have the powers of a king. The governor’s refusal to take oath from the petitioner is a political ploy and bad intention. The offices of the president, assembly speaker, and governor are bound to avoid adopting party policies,” it stated.
“As the oath is not being administered, the petitioner has got no choice but to file a constitutional petition. The Punjab governor should be ordered to administer the oath to the newly-elected Chief Minister of Punjab without any delay,” the court urged.
