ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) on Thursday issued notices to 20 former legislators who resigned from assemblies for holding dual nationalities, Dispatch News Desk (DND) reported.
A three member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry directed the respondents to appear before the court in person or through counsel on the next hearing.
During the course of hearing, the bench inquired from the Election Commission that why the dual-nation lawmakers were not disqualified from contesting upcoming elections.
The apex court further asked as to why were criminal cases not proceeded against the former members of provincial and national assemblies, when they had submitted their resignations.
The court also sought details of nomination papers of all these lawmakers.
The former lawmakers against whom the court issued notices include Dr Asim Hussain, Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi, Murad Ali Shah, Dr Muhammad Ali Shah (late), Sadiq Ali Memon, Abdul Moeed Siddiqui, Askari Taqvi, Muhammad Raza Haroon, Dr Nadeem Ehsan, Syed Tayyab Hassan, Fauzia Ejaz, Sabeen Rizvi, Arish Kumar, Dr Donya Aziz, Arif Aziz Sheikh, Jamil Ahmed Malik, Faiza Asghar, Dr Tahir Ali, Jamil Ashraf and Javaid Iqbal Tarkai.
The court also referred to the dual nationality case pertaining to Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) lawmaker Shehnaz Shaikh, whose national assembly membership was suspended and was ordered to return back all perks and privileges received as a lawmaker, and said that the same action was not taken in other cases pertaining to dual nationality.
DND
