In the latest twist to the long and protracted by-polls saga in Pakistan, the Lahore High Court (LHC) stayed the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) order to organize by-elections on 43 seats of the National Assembly.
The LHC's order came after the legal body suspended NA speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf's 2022 move to approve the resignations of the PTI lawmakers and the subsequent ECP de-notification, calling for fresh polls in their constituencies.
The court of Justice Shahid Karim was hearing a plea filed by legislator Riaz Fatyana, plus 42 PTI lawmakers against Pervaiz Ashraf and ECP's decisions.
Arguing for the complainants in court, lawyer Ali Zafar said that the members of the National Assembly belonging to PTI had already gone back on their decision to resign before Ashraf had accepted their resignations.
"Once the resignations are retracted, the Speaker has no power to accept them […] this shows that the acceptance of the resignations is against the law and based on malice," he told the court.
"He never called PTI MNAs and asked them their stance," Zafar argued before calling the Lahore High Court to pronounce the NA speaker's acceptance of resignations as "null and void".
Following the arguments, the LHC decided to suspend Ashraf and ECP's previous decisions before instructing the Shehbaz Sharif government and the poll body, to file their replies on the subject when the matter comes up again in front of the court.