ISLAMABAD: Nawaz Sharif has been disqualified from holding the partypresident, Supreme Court has announced the verdict.

The Supreme Court accepted around a dozen petitions challengingNawazSharif’s appointment as the Pakistan Muslim League-N president and issuednotices to the respondents.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar took up the 13petitions against Nawaz’s party presidency, including those by PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan, Awami Muslim League chief SheikhRashid, MNA Jamshaid Dasti, National Party and the Pakistan Peoples Party(PPP).

The petitions, challenging specific clauses of the recently passedElections Act 2017, state that Nawaz’s appointment asparty president is inviolation of Clause 5 of the Political Parties Order 2002 and Article 17 ofthe Constitution.

As the hearing went under way, the chief justice remarked that thepetitions are political in nature.

He also observed that Parliament is the supreme body of lawmaking in thecountry, adding that the court will strictly move according to the law.

The chief justice inquired from the counsel of one of the petitionersaccording to which law can Parliament’s legislation be nullified.