KARACHI, Oct 9: Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto has moved an urgent application in the Sindh High Court to press her claim to a National Assembly seat reserved for women following withdrawal of cases against her.

She submitted through advocate Farooq H. Naek that she was no longer disqualified due to cases pending against her in accountability courts or her conviction under Section 31-A of the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance for her inability to defend herself. The newly-promulgated National Reconciliation Ordinance has quashed all cases against her and declared Section 31-A ‘ab initio’ void.

Ms Bhutto said she was at the top of her party’s list as a candidate for one of the women’s seats and had filed a petition in the Sindh High Court to be declared elected in 2002. However, her petition was contested on account of the cases filed against her and had been pending for five years. She said the petition be heard urgently and she be declared elected to the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, the PPP chief’s petition for protective bail was disposed of by a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Faisal Arab in terms of statements made by Deputy Attorney-General Rizwan A. Siddiqui and NAB deputy prosecutor-general Shafaat Nabi Khan Sherwani.

The DAG said no federal agency had any intention to arrest Ms Bhutto on her arrival in Karachi on Oct 18.

NAB counsel Sherwani said the petition had been rendered infructuous by the reconciliation ordinance. Not only the pending cases, he said, but the sentence awarded to her in absentia had also been quashed and terminated.

Advocates Farooq H. Naek and Abu Bakr Zardari welcomed the assurances and did not press the petition.

PRESIDENTIAL POLL: PPP presidential candidate Faryal Talpur’s petition against re-election of President Gen Pervez Musharraf was adjourned indefinitely on a request of her counsel, advocates Naek and Zardari.

The counsel told a division bench comprising Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Justice Ali Sain Dino Metlo that the Supreme Court was already seized of identical matters.