MUZAFFARABAD, July 27: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly here on Saturday held `voting` on a no-confidence resolution against Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed in the absence of its movers as well as the entire opposition.

Speaker Sardar Ghulam Sadiq, who presided over the session, asked the only 16 lawmakers present in the house to vote in favour or against the resolution and as there were no ayes, he declared the resolution unsuccessful.

Earlier, the house suspended Rule 227 of the Rules of Procedure on a motion by minister for finance Chaudhry Latif Akbar to be able to hold session on a holiday.

Of the present 16 members, 14 belonged to the ruling Peoples Party (PPAJK) and one each to the MQM and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Azad Kashmir (JUAK).

The JUAK member, Pir Attiqur Rehman, was among those 11 MLAs who were supporting the no-confidence resolution and had filed a joint petition in the AJK High Court to forestall any action by the speaker to unseat them on the basis of their alleged resignations.

However, the remaining 10 pro no-confidence MLAs from the ruling party, 11 Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) MLAs, five Muslim Conference (MC) MLAs and one MQM MLA abstained.

Four PPAJK members, including Prime Minister Majeed, also did not show up.

On Friday, MLAs Abdul Majid Khan and Mohammad Hussain Sargala had faxed an application to the Assembly secretariat to withdraw their no-confidence resolution.

However, around the same time, President Sardar Mohammad Yaqoob Khan had also sent presidential order to convene the session on the advice of the prime minister.

The president had earlier skirted the same responsibility on the grounds that it was speaker`s domain to call the session for voting on no-confidenceresolution.

The speaker was quoted on Saturday by a section of press as having said that the presidential order was received at 10am on Friday whereas the fax was received later and carried illegible signatures.

Interestingly, at about 12 noon on Friday, when the AJK High Court was told that by the counsel for the movers of the no-confidence resolution that they would not press for a direction to the speaker to summon the session (for voting on the no-confidence motion) because the said resolution was being withdrawn, there was no word by the counsel for the speaker that the assembly secretariat had received any presidential orders for the session.

According to the AJK`s InterimConstitution Act 1974, in the event of failure of a no-confidence resolution another such resolution cannot be moved over the next six months.

The ruling party was of the view that following the `failure` of the no-trust motion, the opposition had lost right to move any such motion until the passage of six months.

However, leader of the opposition Raja Farooq Haider dismissed the contention and said the session and process of voting carried no worth in the eyes of law and constitution. `It is unfortunate that the speaker is bent upon making mockery of the rules and system just to please his party,` he said.

He asserted that Mr Majeed had lost the trust of majority and morality demanded of him to step down on his own.