ISLAMABAD - The inner circles of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) believe that announcement of Dr Arslan Iftikhar, the elder son of former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, to file a reference against the party chief Imran Khan is more political without having any legal standing and it would be dealt with politically.
“This is a political stunt being used by Dr Arslan to counter the allegations levelled by the PTI chief against his father for rigging the general elections 2013 and we will deal it politically in the next coming days,” an insider of the party said wishing not to be named.
He further said, “ Dr Arslan is a non-entity at the moment and there is nothing important in his statements.”
Dr Arslan is the son of once power chief justice of Pakistan and also remained in the limelight in the past - be it his alleged connections with the property tycoon Malik Riaz or his appointment in the Board of Investment, Balochistan. On Monday he announced to file a reference against him claiming he was not righteous and truthful any more as required under the Constitution.
On the other hand, legal mind of the party senior lawyer Hamid Khan believes that the case of Dr Arslan was neither legally sound nor it has any standing in the light of the Constitution. “Under the Constitution of Pakistan, only Speaker National Assembly was the competent authority to file a reference before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against any member of the National Assembly,” Hamid Khan said while talking to The Nation.
He said any person’s reference other than Speaker NA filed in the commission against any member of the Parliament had no weight legally and ECP would definitely throw it into the dustbin. He further said that earlier in the past, MQM and late Dr Sher Afghan Khan Niazi, former federal minister during General (retd) Musharraf regime, had separately filed two references against Imran in 2007 and the commission had dismissed both of these.
“We will first answer the allegations of Dr Arslan politically,” an other insider of party said and questioned in a lighter mood that if Dr Iftikhar is talking about Islamic laws in connection with Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution so he would have to prove all the allegations in the presence of the witnesses (who will also fulfil the condition of Article 62 and 63) as mentioned in Islamic laws. So where will he find the witness under the Islamic laws, he laughed at the move of Dr Arslan.
PTI Information Secretary Dr Shireen Mazari said that the party was moving ahead smoothly with its demand of verifications of election results of at least four constituencies of National Assembly and the allegations like Dr Arslan could not block their way.