The Lahore High Court (LHC) has directed Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf to take oath from the newly elected Punjab Chief Minster Hamza Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday, Aaj News reported on Friday.
The LHC judge Justice Jawad Hassan announced the reserved verdict on Punjab Chief Minister-elect Hamza Shahbaz’s plea seeking the administration of oath to him.
Delivering the verdict, Justice Jawad Hassan directed that Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf should administer the oath to Hamza Shehbaz as Punjab Chief Minister at 11:30 am tomorrow [Saturday].
The order comes after the CM-elect had sought the high court’s intervention in his oath-taking ceremony for the third time as the government had delayed his oath-taking ceremony on several grounds despite Hamza being elected with a clear majority of 197 votes from the Punjab Assembly on April 16.
Justice Jawad Hassan delivered a safe verdict on the petition of Hamza Shehbaz and appointed National Assembly (NA) Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf as the representative for the swearing-in of the new Chief Minister of Punjab.
The LHC judge issued a detailed decision of 9 pages on Hamza Shehbaz’s third petition for his oath.
The oath-taking ceremony will be held at Punjab Governor’s House in which around 700 guests will be invited.
Earlier today, the Court reserved verdict in Chief Minister-elect Hamza Shehbaz’s third plea after hearing arguments presented by the lawyers of all parties concerned.
In his petition, Hamza stated that the LHC’s earlier order directing Punjab Governor Omer Sarfaraz Cheema to administer the oath to him or appoint someone else to do so was being violated.
“The governor has once again refused to respect the ruling of the Lahore High Court,” Hamza cited in the petition, which highlighted the federal and Punjab governments. He also urged the court to appoint an official to administer the oath.
On Thursday, Governor Cheema decided against administering the oath to Hamza and filed an intra-court plea against the directives issued to him by the high court.
On April 22, the LHC, in a petition of Hamza, ruled that the governor could not refuse oath to a newly-elected chief minister of a province and expected that the president would nominate any person to administer oath to Hamza Shehbaz without a delay.
