PESHAWAR, Nov 8: Parliamentary leader of Awami National Party (ANP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Sardar Hussain Babak on Friday moved the Peshawar High Court against the holding of dualoffices by Speaker of the House Asad Qaisar, who is also the provincial president of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

While filing the petition, Sardar Babak was accompanied by party leaders including former MNA Jamila Gilani and ex-MPAs Shagufta Malik and Yasmeen Zia.

In the petition, Mr Babak requested the court to declare the holding of dual offices by the speaker illegal and unconstitutional and direct him (speaker) to vacate one of the posts.A panel of lawyers led by Abdul Lateef Afridi and including Khushdil Khan and Rafigur Mohmand represent Mr Babak.

In the petition, Mr Babak said Asad Qaisar was elected as member of the provincial assembly from Swabi before becoming the speaker of the House.

He said at the time of his election, Asad Qaisar was also the provincial president of PTI and continued to hold both these posts.

The petitioner said it was a universal principle that speaker of a house or an assembly was its custodian who was supposed to act as neutralperson and treat allthe political parties equally.

He added that the speaker should be custodian of all political parties, but Asad Qaisar had been safeguard-ing the interests of his own political party by acting in a partisan manner.

Mr Babak said instead of providing justice to all members, he had openly been acting as a leader of PTL He said the speaker had also been participating in official meetings of PTI as well as that of the provincial government while completely ignoring the sanctity attached to the office of the speaker of the House.

The petitioner said it was a universal principle and the rule of propriety also demanded that the speaker should hold a single office as he/she could not do justice with the responsibilities of the office.

He said in the past, the assembly speakers acted in non-partisan manner and did not hold their party`s position when holding the office.Mr Babak also referred to the Lahore High Court judgment in which the holding of dual offices by then President Asif Zardari, who was also co-chairman of PPP, was declared illegal.

Later, the ANP leader told reporters on the premises of the high court that after election of Asad Qaisar, as speaker of the assembly they had raised the issue on the floor of the House and an impression was given that he would quit one of the posts but despite passage of around six months, he had been occupying the two posts.

He said despite passage of so many months, the standing committees had not been set up in the assembly, which was enough to expose the poor performance of the speaker.