LHC dismisses Cheema’s plea to contest NA-133 by-elections

A Lahore High Court’s (LHC) division bench, headed by Justice Jawad Hassan, dismissed the plea of PTI candidate Jamshed Iqbal Cheema wherein he had requested the court to allow him to contest the by-election in NA-133 constituency.

The returning officer (RO) had earlier rejected the nomination papers of Cheema and his covering candidate, Musarrat Jamshed Cheema, after they failed in proving that the proposers of their nomination papers belonged to the NA-133 constituency.

As per the election laws, the proposer must be a resident of the same constituency from where the candidate is contesting the election.

Cheema later challenged the RO’s order in the Election Appellate Tribunal but could not establish his case as a result of which the Appellate Tribunal upheld the RO’s order and rejected his appeal.

After that, Cheema filed a writ petition in LHC seeking direction to set aside the order of the RO as well as the order of the Election Appellate Tribunal.

In the petition, he further prayed to the LHC that the election schedule of the by-election, issued by ECP, also be set aside.

"Direction be passed to concerned quarter to announce fresh election program only after correction/ rectification of the record of ECP especially relating to the misplaced census circles and restoration thereof at their relevant Census circles," Cheema had further implored in his petition.

He further requested the LHC that the ECP should perform its constitutional duty of preparing correct/accurate electoral rolls, to enable all eligible voters to exercise their right of franchise and guard against the corrupt practice of including non-residents as voters to materially affect the election result, by preventing them from casting their votes, through the exclusion of such non-eligible voters from the electoral rolls as an accurate electoral is necessary for holding a fair and free election.

It is pertinent to mention that the first division bench, headed by Justice Shahid Waheed, recused himself from the bench owing to some personal reasons.

Read More: PTI's Cheema challenges rejection of nomination papers

A second division bench was constituted which was headed by Justice Shujaat Ali Khan. But this time the second member of this bench, Justice Faisal Zaman Khan, denied hearing the matter owing to some personal reasons.

Later, a third bench was constituted which was headed by Justice Jawad Hassan who dismissed Cheema’s plea.

During the proceedings today, the counsels of the petitioner Cheema once again failed to establish their case before the third bench as a result of which the plea was dismissed.