ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday announced that Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani’s is eligible to assume position of acting president in absence of the president of Pakistan. Earlier the IHC has reserved verdict on the petition on Saturday filed by a citizen.
IHC judge Justice Amir Farooq announced the judgment that was reserved on February 14.
Petitioner Afzal Shinwari had filed a plea through Iftikhar Bashir advocate.
The petitioner through his counsel had contended before the court that Sanjrani was not eligible to assume office of acting president under Article 49 of the Constitution. He said the minimum age of the president is 45 years under the Article but the incumbent Senate chairman has still not reached this age.
The petitioner had stated that appointing Sadiq Sanjrani would be in violation of Article 49 of the Constitution.
Therefore, the petitioner said, Sanjrani doesn’t meet this criterion and pleaded to the court to stop him from discharging his responsibilities as acting president in absence of the president. After hearing the arguments, the bench had reserved its judgement on the petition in Dec last year.
According to Article 49 of the Constitution, the Senate chairman becomes acting president in the absence of the head of state. However, Article 41 states that the individual needs to be more than 45 years of age.
It was pointed out in the petition that Sanjrani was 40 years old and did not qualify the basic requirement to hold the office of the president in the absence of President Dr Arif Alvi.
