Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani has conveyed to former finance minister and PML-N leader Ishaq Dar that since his request for taking oath via a video link is ‘unconstitutional’, it is, therefore, rejected, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Tuesday.   

In his reply to Dar’s letter, Sanjrani has made it clear to him that if he was interested in taking oath as a senator, he would have to come to the House. “It is clearly laid down in Rule 6 of Senate Business Rules that a senator-elect could only take oath of his office inside the House, and not otherwise,” he wrote to the PML-N leader, who is currently living in London in a self-imposed exile. 

“There is no provision under which he or she could be administered the oath via a video or audio link,” says the Senate chairman. 

On February 10, 2022, 24News reported that the former finance minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ishaq Dar had conveyed to Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani his intention to take oath as a senator.

In a letter to the Senate chairman, a copy of which he had also provided to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Ishaq Dar had said that with the rejection of a civil appeal by the Supreme Court (SC) on December 21, 2021, the apex court’s own order, dated May 8, 2018, in which it had suspended his membership of the Senate had ceased to be effective.

“And it is in the light of the SC’s decision that the ECP had to later withdraw its order under which it had suspended my election to Upper House of the parliament,” the former finance minister writes, adding that now when legal obstacles had been removed, he was ready to take the oath of his office. 

However, at the same time, the PML-N leader has told the Senate chairman that since he is under treatment in the UK, he could not appear in the Senate in person; therefore it is his request that arrangements are made for his oath-taking via a video link. “And even if that is not possible, then the chairman, under article- 255 of the Senate’s rules and regulations, can ask Pakistan’s high commissioner in London to administer the oath to me.” 

Reporter Usman Khan