• Says decision taken to avoid diverse decisions as similar plea already pending
• ECP admits petitions against PTI’s party polls for regular hearing
• Hints at party becoming ineligible to get symbol if elections proven flawed

LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: A senior judge of the Lahore High Court (LHC) referred two petitions filed by former prime minister Imran Khan to a full bench on Friday.

In these petitions, filed on Thursday, Mr Khan challenged his five-year disqualification in the Toshakhana case and contested the cancellation of PTI’s party polls held last year.

During a session held in his chamber, Justice Shujaat Ali Khan of the LHC heard the petitions, represented by Barrister Senator Syed Ali Zafar on behalf of PTI’s founding chairman.

The judge noted that a similar petition filed by Mr Khan was already under consideration by a five-member full bench headed by Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan.

Therefore, it would be appropriate if the same full bench decided the fresh petitions involving identical questions of law to avoid diverse decisions. Justice Khan noted and forwarded the petitions to the chief justice with a request to fix them before the full bench.

The full bench has not convened for several months due to the unavailability of a member at the principal seat.

ECP admits pleas against PTI polls

Also on Friday, the ECP admitted for regular hearing a set of identical petitions calling into question PTI’s latest intra-party elections held on Dec 2, with a bench member indicating that the party may become ineligible to obtain election symbol if the polls were proven flawed.

A five-member ECP bench issued notices to the PTI and all the 14 complainants, setting Dec 12 as the date for regular hearing.

During the hearing, the ECP member from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ruled out another intra-party election, stressing that improper polls might have consequences under Section 215 of the Elections Act.

The ECP annulled the PTI’s party elections held last year and gave it 20 days to hold the polls afresh. The PTI did so earlier this month, electing Barrister Gohar Khan as its chairman.

However, the intra-party elections were criticised by many as a farce, with the founding PTI member Akbar S. Babar declaring that he would challenge the exercise before the ECP.

Friday’s hearing

During Friday’s proceedings, the complainants and their lawyers narrated how they were denied their fundamental right of participating in the intra-party elections. Mr Babar’s counsel, Syed Ahmad Hassan Shah, stated that for any election to be considered democratic, it must include a programme, a schedule, method of elections, voter lists, rules and regulations.

He stressed that none existed, as evidenced in the video where a delegation of PTI members headed by Akbar S. Babar was shown on multimedia visiting the PTIs’ central secretariat on Dec 1 on the eve of intra-party elections.

In the video, the person in charge of the secretariat and close confidante of Imran Khan was shown expressing his helplessness in providing the nomination papers, voter lists, and rules and regulations of the intra-party election.

It was pointed out to the Election Commission that PTI leaders who have absconded from law and some in jail were able to acquire and file the nomination papers, whereas ordinary members were denied this opportunity.

When an ECP member inquired if it was legal to complete and submit nomination papers while in jail without prior permission of the prison authorities, the counsel responded in the negative.

Mr Babar’s counsel pleaded that the Constitution provides ample authority to the ECP to proactively monitor intra-party elections and provide another opportunity to the PTI to conduct intra-party elections under neutral monitors.

At this, the ECP member from KP, Justice (retired) Ikramullah Khan, who drafted the ECP’s order of Nov 23, responded that the Election Commission had already been lenient with PTI and afforded the party a last chance to conduct transparent intra-party elections. “Now the time has come to enforce the law,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2023