Election tribunal rejects PPP MNA’s plea against Khurrum Sher’s petition

An election tribunal of the Sindh High Court on Monday rejected an application filed by Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Mirza Ikhtiar Baig seeking rejection of an election petition against him on technical grounds.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf candidate Khurrum Sher Zaman had challenged the election results of the National Assembly constituency NA-241 Karachi South in which PPP candidate Mirza Ikhtiar Baig was declared as the returned candidate.

The PPP MNA’s counsel sough rejection of the election petition under the section 145(1) of the Election Act which stipulates that if any provision of the sections 142, 143 or 144 has not been complied with, the election tribunal shall summarily reject the election petition.

Baig’s counsel submitted that the provisions of the sections 142 to 144 of the Election Act were mandatory and therefore the doctrine of substantial compliance would not come into play. The PTI candidate’s counsel submitted that the petitioner had complied with the section 142 and others relevant sections of the Election Act at the time of the filing of his petition.

The election tribunal headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry after hearing the arguments of the counsel turned down the objections raised by the respondent’s counsel with regard to compliance with the sections 142 to 144 prior to filing of the election petition.

The tribunal observed that the foremost ground taken by the petitioner was that the PPP MNA was disqualified from contesting the elections under the Article 63(1)(c) of the Constitution as he was a dual national and in that regard he had relied on documents annexed to the petition.

The tribunal observed that the petitioner had also pleaded that the Forms 45 issued to him by the presiding officers showed that he had won the election by a big margin but later on Forms 45 of specified polling stations were fabricated and forged to change the result in favour of the respondent. The tribunal observed that the petitioner had alleged that the returning officer was changed just before the consolidation proceedings, who made sure that the petitioner or his polling agents were not informed about the date, time and venue of the consolidation proceedings.

The tribunal observed that petitioner had relied on documents, including the Forms 45 issued to him by the presiding officers and affidavits of polling agents therefore it could not be said that the petition did not give full particulars of the offending acts.

The tribunal observed that whether those acts amounted to ‘corrupt practice’, ‘illegal practice’ or ‘other illegal act’ within the meaning of the section 144(1)(b) of the Act, that could only be examined in due course of these proceedings. The tribunal observed that since the petition gave full particulars, therefore the case of Usman Dar was not attracted. The tribunal observed that none of the objections succeed for rejecting the petition under the section 145(1) of the Election Act, 2017 and dismissed the application against the petition.