PESHAWAR, Feb 6: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday put on notice the respondents including the district returning officer and the rival candidate in a writ petition filed by a disqualified candidate of Pakistan People’s Party seeking restoration of his candidature for the provincial assembly constituency PF-10, Peshawar.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Hamid Farooq Durrani and Justice Mussadiq Hussain Gillani fixed Thursday (Feb 7) for hearing an application filed by the petitioner, Niaz Mohammad, requesting to suspend the orders of the DRO and the returning officer till final disposal of his writ petition.

The bench ordered to club the petition with another writ petition, which was filed by the rival candidate, Ayaz Afridi, before disqualification of Mr Mohammad and had requested the high court to declare him disqualified from contesting polls as his graduation degree was forged.

That petition was fixed for hearing before another bench comprising Justice Raj Mohammad Khan and Justice Ziauddin Khattak. The bench put off hearing in that petition when the petitioner informed that the respondent, Niaz Mohammad, had been disqualified from contesting polls.

Advocate Naveed Maqsood appeared for the petitioner, Niaz Mohammad, and contended that the petitioner nomination papers were accepted and his name was included in the Form-V.

He stated that nobody had raised any objection against his papers at the time of filing of the objections.

He added that subsequently he was also allotted the election symbol.

He argued that since his name was included in Form-V the DRO and the RO had no authority to remove the same.

The counsel requested the court to suspend the impugned order of the DRO and the notification of the RO till the disposal of the petition as he had been facing irreparable loss.

The bench decided to hear the application for interim relief on Thursday and also put on notice the rival candidate Ayaz Afridi.