Tomorrow, the LHC CJ will hear Hamza Shehbaz’s oath-taking petition.

On April 26, Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti of the Lahore High Court (LHC) will hear a plea filed by newly-elected Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz over his oath-taking problem (Tuesday).

In the petition, Hamza Shehbaz impleaded the prime minister through his main secretary, as well as the president and chairman of the Senate through their secretaries.

According to Hamza Shehbaz, the LHC had expressed the hope that the President of Pakistan will designate someone else to administer the oath of the chief minister’s office to him, while submitting its directives to the president’s office for that reason.

However, the court orders have not been carried out, he said while requesting with the court to provide directives for carrying out its decisions.

Earlier, on Monday, a Lahore High Court division bench instructed the interior ministry to produce the rules of the departure control list in response to a plea filed by PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz seeking the restoration of her passport in order to fly to Saudi Arabia to do Umrah (ECL).

Ms Nawaz’s lawyer, Ahsan Bhoon, attended on her behalf and told the court that the petitioner intended to undertake Umrah during the holy month of Ramadan.

A special prosecutor for the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), who was present in court, informed the judge that the petitioner’s name was added to the ECL following her release in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case.

He stated that the petitioner’s primary petition against the ECL had been ongoing since 2021.

The bench’s chief justice, Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, stated that the immediate petition will be considered alongside the main case on Tuesday.

The bench ordered an assistant attorney general to respond on behalf of the interior ministry and to provide the guidelines for placing someone on the ECL. The panel also ordered the NAB prosecutor to respond to the plea in writing.

Ms Nawaz surrendered her passport before the court on November 4, 2019, when she was granted post-arrest bail in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case. However, the bench ordered her to surrender her passport to prove her identity because the NAB was concerned she would flee the country.