LAHORE: A bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) ‘conditionally’ allowed on Thursday former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf to contest the coming general elections, DawnNews reported.

The former prime minister is contesting for National Assembly seat from NA-51 in Gujar Khan, from where he had won in previous two elections.

A LHC bench, headed by Justice Ijazul Hassan, was hearing the petition regarding disqualification of the former premier by a Returning Officer (RO), which was later endorsed by the election tribunal of the LHC. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Mazahir Ali Akbar Naqvi are the other members of the bench.

The Returning Officer of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had rejected the nomination papers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader  citing in his observation, “Admittedly the apex court has held in its judgment in the RPP case that all the government functionaries, including this candidate (Pervez Ashraf) while increasing down-payment from 7pc to 14pc, had prima facie, violated the principle of transparency.”

He also noted that the apex court had also issued a notice to Pervez Ashraf on March 28, 2013, stating why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for writing a secret letter to the court in an attempt to interfere and influence it in the Rental Power Projects RPP case.

Later the PPP leader had filed an appeal against the RO's decision which was dismissed by an election tribunal of the LHC.

In today’s court proceedings, former law minister Farooq H. Naek and Ahsan Bhol appeared before the LHC bench on behalf of the petitioner. They informed the bench that a probe was being carried out in the case on the directives of the Supreme Court.

The former PM can not be disqualified from the elections until a verdict is announced in the case, they pleaded the court.

Upon which the bench ordered the concerned Returning Officer to include the name of Pervez Ashraf in the list of electoral candidates ‘conditionally.’

The court has also directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to review Ashraf’s candidacy and inform the LHC about their decision by April 22, the date on which the court will resume hearing of the case.