PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar on Wednesday filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the imposition of a state of emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, ARY News reported.
In the petition, the PTI Chairman urged the court to declare the imposition of emergency and governor’s rule null and void. He also requested an early hearing of the case.
Earlier, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan challenged the federal government’s justification for imposing an emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), arguing that if security concerns warranted such a measure, similar action should also be considered in other troubled regions, including Balochistan and the Katcha areas.
Speaking to the media outside Parliament, Gohar questioned the government’s rationale for imposing emergency in KP, suggesting that the security situation alone could not justify the move while other areas continued to face security challenges.
“If the situation is bad, impose Governor’s Rule in Balochistan as well. If conditions are not right, impose emergency in the Katcha areas too,” he said.
Gohar also accused the federal government of effectively reviving Article 58(2)(b) of the Constitution by imposing an emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, arguing that the move undermined parliamentary democracy and provincial autonomy.
Article 58(2)(b), abolished through the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment in 2010, previously empowered the president to dissolve the National Assembly, paving the way for the dismissal of the prime minister and federal cabinet.
Gohar maintained that the appropriate response to terrorism should have been to strengthen the provincial government rather than undermine its authority.
“If you wanted to fight terrorism, you should have strengthened the provincial government,” Gohar said.
He warned that the imposition of emergency would undermine provincial autonomy and alleged that the KP government had already been deprived of its authority, with government officials refusing to cooperate with the provincial administration.
Gohar claimed that PTI ministers had been picked up and that deputy commissioners (DCs) and district police officers (DPOs) were not listening to the provincial government.
He questioned how a chief minister could effectively run a province if district administration and police officials did not follow the provincial government’s directives.
Referring to the deployment of Rangers in Sindh, Gohar questioned the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) past response to similar security measures, accusing its leaders of adopting a different position when their own province was affected.
He vowed that PTI would strongly protest against the imposition of emergency in KP.