ISLAMABAD, July 5: The federal government on Saturday moved an appeal before the Supreme Court seeking overturning of a Lahore High Court (LHC) judgment of referring a challenge to the candidature of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to an election tribunal.

“The appeal is likely to be fixed before one of the two available benches in Islamabad next week,” Deputy Attorney-General Raja Abdur Rehman told Dawn after filing the appeal.

Shahbaz Sharif was elected unopposed as member of the Punjab Assembly from PP-48 Bhakkar and became the chief minister last month.

Through a separate application, the government requested the apex court to restrain Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq from referring the petition challenging the nomination of Shahbaz Sharif to the tribunal till the disposal of the instant appeal.

This is the second appeal by the government earlier being against the high court order of disqualifying PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif from contesting the by-election from NA-123 constituency in Lahore.

The Supreme Court has postponed by-election in the constituency for the National Assembly seat from where Nawaz Sharif had been barred to contest.

As happened in the case of Nawaz Sharif, instead of Shahbaz Sharif, the federal government filed an appeal before the apex court.

While deciding the petitions of Syed Khurram Ali Shah, a voter, and Noor Elahi, an independent candidate, the LHC had disallowed Nawaz Sharif from contesting the by-election from NA-123 but kept pending a separate petition against the candidature of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif until an election tribunal decided the matter about his nomination.

These petitions before the high court were filed after the Election Commission allowed the PML-N leaders to contest by-election on technical grounds without deciding about the legal status of their nomination to offset a split verdict of an Election Tribunal on appeals challenging the candidature of the Sharif brothers.

Justice Hafiz Tariq Nasim allowed the Sharifs to contest June 26 by-polls while Justice Mohammad Akram Qureshi held them ineligible.

Petitioner Syed Khurram Ali Shah while challenging the eligibility of Shahbaz Sharif in the high court had alleged that Mr Sharif was publicly propagating his opinion and acting prejudicial to the integrity of the judiciary besides defaming and ridiculing the armed forces.

In the appeal, the government named the returning officer PP-48 Bhukkar-II, the election appellate tribunal for PP-48, the election commission and Syed Khurram Shah as respondents stating that the writ petition of Mr Shah was not maintainable in view of the provisions of Article 225 of the Constitution (election dispute).