LAHORE: A Lahore High Court (LHC) full bench would hear today (Wednesday) a petition filed by PPP candidate for NA-120 by-poll challenging the decisions of the returning officer (RO) and an election tribunal regarding acceptance of nomination papers of the PML-N’s Kulsoom Nawaz.

Justice Muhammad Kazim Raza Shamsi will head the three-judge full bench which has Justice Ali Akbar Qureshi and Justice Muhammad Farrukh Irfan Khan.

The Election Commission of Pakistan, Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, National Accountability Bureau, State Bank of Pakistan and Federal Investigation Agency have also been made parties in the petition filed by Faisal Mir of the PPP.

The petitioner contends that the RO and the election tribunal had brushed aside his objections raised on the candidature of Kulsoom and accepted her nomination papers. He pleads that neither RO nor the tribunal looked into the details of the objections regarding concealment of assets by the PML-N’s candidate. He states the declaration filed by Kulsoom regarding her and her spouse’s assets were entirely false and misleading.

The PPP’s candidate asked the court to set aside the decisions of the RO and the election tribunal and reject the nomination papers of Kulsoom Nawaz.

In a last week’s decision, a two-member election tribunal comprising judges of the LHC had dismissed all appeals filed by candidates of the opposition parties against acceptance of nomination papers of Ms Kulsoom.

The lawyers’ of the appellants had failed to answer the queries posed by the tribunal’s head, Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh, regarding the objections raised in the appeals.

Two appeals were filed by two candidates of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) –Dr Yasmin Rashid and Andleeb Abbas –besides two other separately filed by Faisal Mir of the PPP and Ishtiaq Ahmad Chaudhry advocate of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT). Advocate Chaudhry had later withdrawn his candidature in favour of PTI’s candidate.

Tax on POL products: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday sought replies from the federal government, Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and other authorities on a petition challenging imposition of sales tax on petroleum products without an approval from the cabinet.

During the hearing, Advocate Azhar Siddique argued on behalf of the petitioner saying the government on July 31, 2017 increased prices of petroleum products in an illegal and unconstitutional manner.

The lawyer said when the prices were increased by levying taxes up to 40 per cent, the federal cabinet was not intact following disqualification of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court.

He pointed out that the government had made an announcement that prices would remain unchanged but imposed a further 6.5pc and 3pc sales tax on High Speed Diesel (HSD) and petrol, respectively.

The counsel argued that Ogra exceeded its jurisdiction as it was not supposed to levy sales tax more than 17pc in any circumstances. However, he said, Ogra with the connivance of Federal Board of Revenue, finance ministry and office of the Prime Minister House had been continuously exploiting public at large.

The counsel said the government illegally and unconstitutionally collected billions of rupees from the public under the head of GST.

Therefore, he asked the court to set aside the notification regarding imposition of GST on the petroleum products without the cabinet’s approval and also order punitive action against the authorities responsible for the illegal act.

Justice Ayesha A Malik heard the arguments and sought replies from the respondents by Sept 22.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2017