PESHAWAR: Three election appellate tribunals here on Saturday accepted 33 more appeals against the rejection of nomination papers for the Feb 8 polls by the relevant returning officers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Most of those candidates cleared to contest general elections belonged to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

They included former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser, former provincial finance minister Taimoor Saleem Jhagra, former MNA Sher Ali Arbab, former MPA Tufail Anjum, and chairman of the Gambat tehsil council in Kohat district Sajid Iqbal.

The tribunals comprised the judges of the Peshawar High Court, including Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah, Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Wiqar Ahmad.

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A day ago, they accepted 29 appeals, mostly of the PTI candidates, against rejection of nomination papers.

Appellate tribunals accept 33 more pleas against rejection of nominations

Barrister Waqar Ahmad appeared for Mr Qaiser before the tribunal of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and said nomination papers of his client were rejected for NA-19 Swabi and PK-50 Swabi constituencies by the respective returning officers on the flimsy ground that he had not mentioned two bank accounts in the papers.

He added that those bank accounts were his party’s and not his client’s personal ones.

The lawyer argued that the Election Commission of Pakistan, in its judgement regarding the foreign funding case of the PTI, had mentioned those bank accounts as that of the party.

The tribunal of Justice Attique Shah accepted three appeals of Taimoor Jhagra, whose papers were rejected for NA-28, PK-75 and PK-79 constituencies.

Mr Jhagra’s lawyer Ali Gohar Durrani said the papers of his client were rejected on the ground that there was an audit para of the agriculture department against him declaring that he had to clear Rs31,000 outstanding agriculture tax.

He said initially, an amount of Rs30,000 was mentioned that was deposited by the appellant in the account of the agriculture department before the filing of nomination papers but on the day of scrutiny of his nomination papers, that amount was mentioned as Rs31,000.

Mr Durrani added that Mr Jhagra later deposited Rs31,000 more in that account, so he had paid almost double of the amount in question.

The same tribunal accepted the plea of former MPA Tufail Anjum for whom lawyer Ali Gohar Durrani appeared and said his client’s papers were rejected by the RO on the ground that certain allegations were levelled against him in an FIR registered by the anti-corruption establishment.

He argued that the appellant was not a convict and that merely presence of his name in an FIR won’t make him ineligible to contest polls.

Meanwhile, the tribunal of Justice Shakeel Ahmad ruled that an elected local government office-holder was eligible to contest general elections despite the bar placed on them in the KP Local Government Act, 2013.

The bench gave the ruling while accepting the appeal of PTI leader and chairman of the Gambat tehsil council Sajid Iqbal, whose nomination papers were rejected by the RO for National Assembly seat, NA- 35, Kohat.

His lawyer, Syed Sikander Hayat Shah, said the impugned order, the RO had declared that under Section 85 of the Local Government Act, an elected office-holder of a local council might contest for any political office after resigning from their respective office before the filing of nomination papers.

He added that there was no such bar in the Elections Act, 2017.

The lawyer contended that the Elections Act was a federal law, so its provisions would prevail only if there was conflict in any federal and provincial laws.

He also said under the Constitution, a member of an assembly or Senate could participate for the other body and had to vacate his earlier office after electing to the other one.

“There is no condition of resigning from the existing office prior to contesting polls,” he insisted.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2024