Dozens more PTI aspirants get relief from tribunals

Dozens of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates for the upcoming general elections won their appeals in the appellate tribunals against the rejection of their nomination papers by the returning officers (ROs) concerned during the scrutiny process last week.

Overall, the tribunals, comprising high court judges, across the country, overturned the ROs decisions in more than 100 appeals on Friday, providing a massive relief to the candidates. The tribunal decisions, however, bring several PTI heavyweights back to the election arena.

Those candidates whose papers were allowed on Friday, included Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Haleem Adil Shaikh, Arsalan Khalid, Fawad Chaudhry, Ayaz Amir, Zulfi Bukhari, Basharat Raja, Sheikh Rashid Shafiq, Umar Tanveer Butt, Ijaz Khan Jazzi, Maj Latasab Sati, Sadia Raja, Atif Khan, Shoaib Shaheen and others.

The elections will be held on February 8. Currently, the election schedule is in the appellate stage, following the filing of the nomination papers and then scrutiny of the papers by the ROs. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) data, more than 3,000 were rejected.

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An election tribunal in Rawalpindi, on Friday allowed appeals of 22 candidates. They included Fawad Chaudhry, Ayaz Amir, Zulfi Bukhari, Basharat Raja, Sheikh Rashid Shafiq, Umar Tanveer Butt, Ijaz Khan Jazzi, Maj Latasab Sati, Sadia Raja.

The tribunal would continue hearing of appeal filed by Chaudhry’s wife Hiba on Saturday (today). The tribunal, however, rejected the appeals of PTI’s Arif Abbasi, Nadeem Afzal, Rifat Mehmood, Ameer Abdullah Khan, Atifullah Khan and Hasan Adeel for various constituencies were rejected.

So far, the two tribunals in Rawalpindi, consisting of Mirza Waqas Rauf and Justice Chaudhary Abdul Aziz, had disposed of 46 appeals. It was stated that these tribunals would continue working on the closed holidays of Saturday and Sunday (today and tomorrow) in view of the elections.

In the two city of Islamabad, the appellate tribunal, comprising Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir overturned the ROs’ decision of rejecting the nomination papers of 55 candidates. While disposing of the appeals, the judge raised questions about the competence of the ROs.

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Talking to the ECP officials, the judge remarked that even the ROs could have resolved little things in five minutes. He pointed to rejection of nomination papers because a candidate did not pay his telephone bill. Because of these things, he told the ECP officials: “Our papers and your time were wasted.”

Those, whose papers were approved by the tribunal, belonged to all the major parties, including the PTI, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) as well as independents.

The candidates who were allowed to contest were PTI's Shoaib Shaheen, Niazullah Niazi, Chaudhry Ilyas Mehrban, Amir Mughal and Zubair Farooq; PML-N’s Pir Adil Shah Geelani; PPP's Syed Sibtul Haider, JI’s Nasrullah and Farzana Kausar, and others.

Meanwhile, on the appeal of PTI’s Syed Zafar Ali Shah, the tribunal directed the appellant to clear his outstanding dues by Monday. On another appeal, the judge allowed Hamza Ali Haroon’s papers after the RO concerned admitted his mistake in rejecting his papers.

The PTI also got a big relief in Karachi, where the papers of Qureshi and his son, Zain; senior party leaders Haleem Adil Shaikh, Arsalan Khalid were approved. The tribunal gave conditional permission to Mirza Akhtar Baig of the PPP to contest the election if he had renounced his dual nationality.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a total of 42 appeals were heard in the three appellate tribunals in Peshawar, out of which 30 appeals were approved. The tribunal in Dera Ismail Khan also heard online and issued notices to the returning officers on 14 appeals.

Those whose papers were allowed in K-P included PTI’s Mahmood Jan, Atif Khan, Shehram Tarkai, Iftikhar Mashwani, Mujahid Ali Khan, Shafiullah Jan, Ameer Farzand, Abdul Salam Afridi, Adnan Khan, Mian Umar, Shaukat Yousafzai, and others. The tribunal dismissed the appeal of one Yasin Khan.

During the hearings, Justice Shakeel Ahmed, a tribunal judge, remarked that people were the best judges in the election and can elect whomever they wanted.

Separately, an appellate tribunal sought reply from a returning officer by December 6 on a plea challenging acceptance of nomination papers of PML-N’s Maryam Nawaz from constituency NA-119.

The petitioner had raised objections against acceptance of Maryam’s nomination papers contending “she is not Sadiq & Ameen”.