Election tribunal at PHC to hear six petitions today

PESHAWAR: The Election Tribunal in Peshawar High Court (PHC) would take up six election petitions including the one against Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Noorul Haq Qadri for hearing today.

The Election Tribunal headed by Justice Musarrat Hilali would take up the election petitions filed by the losing candidates including PTI minister Muhammad Atif against ANP MNA Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, Al-Haj Shah Jee Gul Afridi's petition against Federal Minister Noorul Haq Qadri, Adil Nawaz against Election Commission of Pakistan, Abdul Shahid against Jawad Hussain, Bilal Rehman against Sajid Khan and Qaiser Jamal's petition against Abdul Shakoor.

Disposing of election petitions along with regular cases within the given time period would be a challenge for the election tribunals comprising sitting judges of the high court as many election petitions after the 2008 general elections had become anfractuous after the assemblies completed their five years term and the petitions remained undecided.

Despite the past record of the election tribunals comprising sitting judges, the Election Commission of Pakistan has once again notified the sitting judges of the high court on August 15 under section 140 of the Elections Act-2017 to act as election tribunals in the four provinces for hearing election petitions related to the July 25 general elections.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the ECP has appointed five judges of the Peshawar High Court as election tribunals for different areas. These judges include Justice Mussarat Hilali, Justice Lal Jan Khattak, Justice Mohammad Ghazanfar Khan, Justice Abdul Shakoor Khan and Justice Ijaz Anwar.

Section-140 of the Elections Act empowers the ECP to appoint as many tribunals as may be necessary for the swift disposal of election petitions. Furthermore, an election tribunal shall comprise, in the case of an election to an assembly or the Senate, a person who is or has been a judge of a high court. This time the tribunal was empowered to suspend the membership of a lawmaker after serving a show cause notice on a returned candidate when the delay in proceedings is occasioned by any act or omission of the returned candidate. The act further providesthat where a petition is not decided within four months (120 days), further adjournment sought by any party shall be granted only on payment of the special cost of Rs10,000 per adjournment and adjournment shall not be granted for more than three days.

Due to the pendency of election petitions for years, the Election Commission of Pakistan had appointed retired judges for election petitions of the 2003 general elections. The election tribunals comprising retired judges had performed well compared to the tribunals having serving judges and had disposed of around 90 percent of the election petitions within one year of their constitution.

The lawyers dealing with the election petitions said that the cases would be decided in time if the tribunals strictly followed the Election Act 2017 and avoid unnecessary adjournment. Qazi Muhammad Anwar, who was dealing with election petitions, told The News that this time the election tribunals may dispose of election petitions without much delay as the Election Act-2017 empowered the tribunals to take strict measures for deciding the post-election disputes in time. In the past, he said, there were several cases after the 2008 general elections, which were not decided even after the expiry of the five years term of the assemblies and became anfractuous. He said in the past, the cases remained pending for years due to routine judicial work by the sitting judges of the high court along with the election petitions.