The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday reserved its decision on the PTI’s plea seeking appointment of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati or any other person “considered appropriate” in place of the provincial governor to administer oath to Chief Minister-elect Sohail Afridi.
Afridi’s election on Monday came amid uncertainty over the status of Ali Amin Gandapur’s resignation as provincial chief executive. The two resignations submitted to KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi by Gandapur, who also belongs to the PTI and resigned on the directive of party founder Imran Khan, have been returned.
But the PTI maintains that the resignation of a CM does not require the governor’s approval as per the Constitution. With this argument, the party elected Afridi in a session boycotted by the opposition.
On the same day, in a pre-emptive measure, the PTI approached the PHC with the request to appoint KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati or any other person deemed appropriate in place of Governor Kundi to administer oath to Afridi.
Earlier today, PTI’s Salman Akram Raja and the provincial Additional Attorney General appeared in court. Among them, the court yesterday ordered the latter to confirm whether the KP governor had received the summary related to Afridi’s oath-taking from the assembly secretariat and submit a reply today.
During today’s proceedings, PTI lawyer Raja and KP Governor’s lawyer Amir Javed presented their arguments.
Statement presented in PHC against the election of the prime minister
JUI-F leader Maulana Lutfur Rehman also filed a petition in the PHC today, requesting that the election of Sohail Afridi as chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa be “annulled” and declared null and void.
Rehman was one of four people in the race for the KP CM office, along with Sardar Shah Jehan Yousaf of the PML-N, and Arbab Zarak Khan of the PPP and Sohail Afridi of the PTI, who won the elections after the opposition organized a boycott.
In a petition filed today, a copy of which is available with sunrise.comRehman named six respondents including the KP government, KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, KP Assembly through its speaker Babar Saleem Swati, provincial assembly secretary, outgoing KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and CM-elect Sohail Afridi.
In his petition, he asked the court to annul the election and declare it “ab initio void” for being “totally illegal, arbitrary, capricious, bad faith, incompetent, coram non judice.”
Rehman questioned how elections could be held if Gandapur’s resignation has not yet been accepted. Citing Article 130(8) of the Constitution, he stressed that elections cannot be held for the office unless it is vacant.
Article 130(8) states that “the Chief Minister may, in a writing signed by him addressed to the governor, resign from office”, and it is the same clause that the PTI has been citing to maintain that the resignation of the CM does not require the acceptance or approval of the governor.
Rehman’s petition further asked the court to declare the decisions taken by the assembly and the president regarding the appointment of the CM as “without legal authority, null and void.”
The petition further urged the court to “declare all notifications and consequent actions, including the impugned notification, as illegal, arbitrary, capricious, incompetent and without legal effect.”
Rehman asked the court to stop any further proceedings in the matter until the governor had “legally received and verified” Gandapur’s resignation.
The petition called for a new election “in accordance with the Constitution and the rules of the assembly, after legal confirmation of the vacancy.”
He concluded by asking the APS to suspend the election result to “avoid chaos and ensure the preservation of the rule of law.”
Speaking to the media outside the court, Rehman reiterated the opposition’s stance on the validity of the elections.
“Yesterday we also said that the resignation of the former Prime Minister has not yet been accepted and that he was summoned by the governor on October 15.
“Until the seat is vacant, elections cannot be held,” he said.
Responding to a question on why the opposition chose to field candidates for the CM elections if it believed the elections were not in accordance with the law, he said: “Initially we were under the impression that the resignation had been final, but then the governor’s letter came to light, detailing that the resignation had not yet been finalised.”
From resignation to election
The KP Assembly, barely two years old, appears to be currently facing a constitutional crisis, which has its origins in jailed PTI founder Imran Khan’s October 8 decision to change leadership in the province.
In line with his directive, Gandapur resigned from his post on the same day as provincial chief executive, while party general secretary Salman Akram Raja confirmed that the party had chosen Sohail Afridi.
The resignation letter, shared by Gandapur on X, was typed on his official letterhead and signed at the bottom. However, this initial letter of resignation apparently got lost in the bureaucracy, and the Governor’s House initially denied receiving it.
But, a copy of the letter seen by Sunrise showed that he was received by the governor’s staff.
Gandapur subsequently sent another handwritten resignation to the governor, which was acknowledged by Kundi on 11 October. He said in a post on X that the Governor House had received a handwritten resignation letter from Gandapur. “After thorough scrutiny and legal formalities according to the constitution [and] relevant laws, the subject’s resignation will be processed in due time,” he added.
The controversy surrounding the resignation took another turn late in the evening of the next day, when Governor Kundi returned two separate letters submitted by the former by “disparate signatures” and summoned him on October 15 (tomorrow) to resolve the matter.
In a post on social media platform
He also shared a letter addressed to Gandapur, in which he stated that the Governor’s House had received two resignation letters on October 8 and 11, which had “disparate and different signatures”.
For its part, Gandapur responded to Kundi’s post on X, stating: “Finally, the resignation submitted on October 8, previously denied by the Governor’s Office, is also recognized.”
He further said that both the resignations submitted by him bore his “authentic signatures”.
At that time, KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati had already called an assembly session to elect a new house leader. And the PTI maintained that under Article 130(8) of the Constitution, the resignation of a prime minister did not require the acceptance or approval of the governor.
The opposition, however, did not agree and walked out of the session held yesterday for the CM elections. Following their boycott, the candidates fielded by JUI-F, PPP and PML-N received no votes, while Afridi won the race with 90.
