President Arif Alvi has asked Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif to reconsider his advice to the former about the appointment of a new Punjab governor, maintaining that Omar Cheema, who was removed from the office on May 9, still holds the office and "there is no occasion to propose a new appointment".
According to a statement issued by the President's Secretariat on Saturday, President Alvi referred to an earlier communication to the prime minister, dated May 9, 2022, in which he had rejected the PM's advice for the removal of Cheema from office, stating that “the Governor shall hold office during the pleasure of the President”, as envisaged by Article 101 (2) of the Constitution.
However, Cheema was removed that same day, with a late night notification of the Cabinet Division stating that he had ceased to hold office on the advice of the prime minister sent to the president on two occasions.
In today's communication, the president reiterated this stance and said that "the present circumstances demanded that the incumbent governor should continue to hold that position".The president also referred to a letter that Cheema had written to him on April 23 and a report dated May 4. Both these documents, he said, highlighted the change in loyalties during the election of the Punjab chief minister on April 16 — where Hamza Shehbaz garnered majority votes with 25 dissident PTI lawmakers throwing their support behind him — and "cobbling of the majority by illegal means" had generated "serious governance issues in the province, as well as violated the Article 63-A of the Constitution".Article 63-A pertains to the disqualification of lawmakers on the basis of defection in a recent ruling on a presidential reference, the Supreme Court said the votes of defecting lawmakers would not be counted.President Alvi referred to the ruling saying that it "vindicated" the "principled stand of the governor (Cheema)".
He added that Cheema's stance was further augmented by the May 20, 2022 decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which declared the defection and changing loyalties of 25 PTI lawmakers during the April 16 election the “worst form of betraying the electorate and party’s policy”.
The ECP had de-seated the said lawmakers on grounds of defection.
The president also highlighted this in his communication to the prime minister.
"In view of the above-mentioned facts, the president asked the Prime Minister to reconsider his advice with regards to the appointment of a new governor Punjab in accordance with Article 48 (1) of the Constitution," the President Secretariat's statement read.
Hamza's election and oath-taking
Cheema's removal as the Punjab governor followed a long-winded saga that centred on the election and subsequent oath-taking of Hamza Shehbaz as the province's chief minister.
Hamza was elected the province's chief executive on April 16, in a Punjab Assembly session marred by violence and chaos. His oath-taking, however, was delayed for weeks as Cheema refused to administer oath to him, casting aspersions on the validity of his election.
Subsequently, Hamza approached the Lahore High Court (LHC) several times — first on April 21 — and sought its intervention in the matter. The court had then directed President Alvi to appoint a representative to administer the oath in the absence of the governor. But a delay by the president in following the court's directive saw Hamza approach the court again on April 25. This time, he had asked the LHC to instruct Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to administer oath to him, following which LHC Chief Justice Ameer Bhatti had directed Cheema to complete Hamza's oath-taking process by April 28.
When the president and governor still failed to follow the court's instructions, Hamza had sought the LHC's intervention for a third time on April 29. The court had then directed National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to administer the oath to Hamza, who was sworn in as the Punjab CM the very next day.
Hours before Hamza's oath-taking, Cheema had announced that he had rejected the resignation of Hamza's predecessor, Usman Buzdar — who had stepped down as the provincial chief executive on March 28 — declaring it "not constitutionally valid" as Buzdar had addressed his resignation to then-prime minister Imran Khan, but was accepted by Cheema's predecessor Chaudhry Sarwar. Cheema had later gone on to call Hamza a "fake chief minister" and derided his oath-taking as "unconstitutional".
The PTI has also challenged Hamza's election in the LHC.
