Fresh petition filed in IHC against Shehbaz Sharif as PAC chairman

ISLAMABAD: A petition has been filed in Islamabad High Court (IHC) against election of opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif as chairman of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), ARY News reported on Tuesday.

Petitioner Riaz Hanif Rahi’s lawyer G.M. Chaudhry has filed a miscellenous petition in IHC for further hearing of the case in the court.

The court had reserved its decision on the maintainablity of the case on December 31, the petition said.

A division bench of the high court comprised of Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiani had hear the case.

The petitioner in fresh petition has requested for hearing of the matter under Section 151 for further arguments on the case.

The petitioner pleaded for further hearing of the case for the sake of fair trial.

The high court had reserved verdict on the appointment of Shehbaz Sharif as the chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the decision is yet to be announced.

Previous hearing

In the previous hearing, the lawyer of the petitioner argued that appointing Shehbaz as chairman of PAC is like “ridiculing the constitution”, thus IHC should dismiss the Opposition Leader of the National Assembly from the top post of PAC.

Appointing corruption-suspect Shehbaz as PAC chairman would influence the inquiry, the petitioner’s counsel asserted, while mentioning that issuing production order for the president of Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz to attend the National Assembly session, was also against the law of National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The PML-N leader is currently under the custody of NAB in connection to corruption cases.

Shehbaz Sharif was elected Chairman of the PAC in a meeting of the committee at Parliament House in Islamabad on December 21. The PAC in a move unanimously elected Shehbaz as its chairman.

Earlier this month, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government conceded the chairmanship of PAC to Shehbaz, almost three months after a stalemate over the key position.