Pakistan: Lahore High Court reinstates Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as Punjab CM

Lahore [Pakistan], December 23 (ANI): The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday reinstated PML-Q leader Chaudhry Parvez Elahi as the Punjab chief minister, Dawn reported. The court's decision came after Elahi gave an undertaking assuring the court that he would not dissolve the provincial assembly. The court in its ruling also restored the provincial cabinet.
The court issued the directives after a five-member bench took up Elahi's plea challenging Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman's orders to de-notify him as the provincial chief executive. Chaudhry Parvez Elahi filed the petition after Punjab Governor on Thursday denotified him as Punjab's Chief Minister in order to prevent ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan from dissolving the assembly.
The hearing was stopped for an hour after the court asked Elahi's lawyer, Barrister Ali Zafar, to seek assurance from his client concerning the dissolution of the assembly. After the hearing resumed, Elahi gave an undertaking wherein he said that he would not dissolve the provincial assembly until the next hearing, according to Dawn.

"If me and my cabinet are reinstated, then I will not send the assembly dissolution summary to the governor till the next hearing," the undertaking, which was read aloud by Zafar in the courtroom, as per Dawn.
Following the submission of the undertaking, the court reinstated Elahi as Punjab's CM and asked the respondents to submit a response at the next hearing scheduled for January 11, 2023. Speaking to the media outside the courtroom, Elahi's son, Moonis Elahi, said that the PML-Q respected the judiciary.
"We will seek a vote of confidence and will dissolve the assembly the same day," Dawn quoted Moonis Elahi as saying.
During the hearing, Barrister Ali Zafar said that his client was elected as the chief minister on July 22. He said that Elahi had the required number of votes in the assembly but the then speaker had removed 10 votes and the matter was raised in the Supreme Court, as per the Dawn report.
Zafar stated that the verdict had invalidated the deputy speaker's decision and Elahi was elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab. In his argument, Zafar said that Elahi could only be removed by a no-confidence vote.
"He got the required number of votes in the assembly but the then deputy speaker had removed 10 votes. The matter was then taken to the Supreme Court.
"The top court, in its verdict, had invalidated the deputy speaker's decision and said that Parvez Elahi was, lawfully, the chief minister of Punjab," he said.
According to Dawn, the petition filed by Elahi mentioned the name of the Punjab governor through his principal secretary, the government of Punjab through its chief secretary and the Punjab Assembly speaker as respondents. Barrister Ali Zafar and Advocate Amir Saeed have presented the application.
In the application, it is said that Punjab Governor Balighur Rehman on December 19 issued an order summoning a Punjab Assembly session and calling on the CM to seek a vote of confidence from the house." In response to the order, the Punjab Assembly speaker gave a ruling declaring the summoning of the session to be unconstitutional and adjourned the ongoing session till Dec 22," according to Dawn.
As per the petition, the Governor's two orders regarding the vote of confidence and the de-notification were passed "without lawful authority" and had "no legal effect."According to the petition, the governor's order of summoning a Punjab Assembly session was illegal under the Constitution and rules of procedure of the provincial Assembly of the Punjab 1997. (ANI)