ISLAMABAD: A plea seeking disqualification of Ishaq Dar was withdrawn from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday ahead of the oath-taking of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senator-elect.
Dar, who touched down in Pakistan on Monday night after ending five years of self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, will be sworn in as a senator at 4:00 pm. He will take oath as the nation’s sixth finance minister since 2018 on Wednesday at 10:00 am.
A bench of four members of the commission, headed by Nisar Durrani, resumed hearing the plea. The petitioner’s counsel maintained they intended to approach a higher forum on this case and, therefore, are withdrawing the plea.
At this, the ECP directed the petitioner, Barrister Azhar Siddique, to submit a written statement for the plea’s withdrawal.
“It is respectfully submitted that I want to withdraw the present petition with permission to file fresh if so needed. As the ECP is not a court and interpretation is involved in this case in view of judgments of the Supreme Court dated PLD 2018 SC 189, 2015 SCMR 1303, 2021 SCMR 1675, PLD 2018 Sindh 263, we may file an alternate remedy as well,” the petitioner said in the written statement.
A day earlier, the ECP had reserved its verdict on a petition seeking to declare Dar’s seat in the Senate “vacant” over his failure to take oath as a senator within 60 days of being elected.
Dar, who remained in self-exile between 2017 and 2022, was elected in absentia as a senator on a technocrat seat from Punjab in March 2018 but did not take oath due to his stay in London.
The Supreme Court disqualified him from office in July 2017 after an investigation into the undisclosed wealth of now-deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family.
However, Dar’s counsel had argued that the ordinance, promulgated by the president, about 60 days for taking the oath “does not apply to his client”.
“The ordinance lapsed after completing its constitutional life,” the lawyer argued, adding that a member cannot be disqualified if he does not take the oath even for five years.
