RO told to accept Firdous Shamim Naqvi’s nomination papers

An appellate election tribunal on Thursday set aside a returning officer’s order with regard to the rejection of the nomination papers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader and former provincial assembly opposition leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi for the National Assembly constituency NA-236 East Karachi, and directed the RO to accept his nomination papers.

The order came on the election appeal filed by the PTI leader against the rejection of his three nomination papers by the RO for the NA-236 constituency. The appellant’s counsel Jibran Nasir said the RO had rejected the nomination papers of the appellant on the grounds that the party symbol of the PTI has been rejected by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which is not a valid ground for rejecting his nomination papers.

The appeal was opposed by the opponent’s counsel Hassan Sabir, who said that the appellant had not disclosed his affiliation with the political party. After hearing the arguments of the counsel and the perusal of the RO’s order, the appellate election tribunal headed by Justice Khadim Hussain Tunio said that just because the PTI’s election symbol has been rejected, it does not mean that every single candidate related to that party has to have their nomination papers rejected.

The tribunal said that the legislature does not provide for such an extreme measure on the matter that would have been provided from under the law.

The tribunal also said that Section 217(5) provides that an RO has to allocate a symbol, and the logically impugned order falls short of any favour because when the symbol of the party has been rejected, any other symbol can still be allocated to the candidate, ensuring him to contest the election as per the law’s mandate.

The tribunal added that the perusal of the election schedule also shows that the allotment of the election symbol to the contesting candidates is set for January 13, which was two weeks after the scrutiny, so the RO cannot have rejected the nomination papers on the grounds that his party failed to obtain an election symbol.

The tribunal set aside the RO’s order and directed the election officer to accept all the nomination papers of the PTI leader forthwith. The election tribunal also issued notices to ROs and the ECP on the appeals of PTI candidates against the rejection of their respective nomination papers for national and provincial assembly constituencies.

PTI candidates Aftab Jehangir, Saeed Ahmed, Amjad Iqbal Afridi and Saifur Rehman have challenged the rejection of their respective nomination papers for NA-244 West, NA-246 West, NA-242 Keamari, NA-243, PS-111 and NA-235 East Karachi.