CM disqualification case: SHC reserves judgment on chief minister's petition

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) reserved on Friday its judgement on the petition of Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, who sought transfer of proceedings from Karachi's election tribunal to any other in Sindh regarding the results of the 2013 elections.

A division bench, comprising justices Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Shahab Sarki, reserved its ruling after hearing arguments from the lawyers representing the chief minister, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and others. Earlier, the court had restrained the election tribunal, headed by a former SHC judge, Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, from passing any final order in the proceedings which were initiated on the request of former chief minister Ghous Ali Shah of the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N).

Qaim Ali Shah had won the election from PS-29, defeating Ghous, who had agitated against alleged rigging in the election before the tribunal. Advocate Farooq H Naek said his client, now the chief minister of the province, had filed an application under Section 58 of the Representation of Peoples Act 1976 before the ECP, seeking a transfer of proceedings from the election tribunal in Karachi to any other tribunal in the province as he claimed the Karachi tribunal's head was biased against him.

The ECP bench, comprising ECP chairperson Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza and three other members, took up the matter on December 12 last year and called for comments from the election tribunal immediately through fax and barred it from passing any final order until December 15. On December 18, a bench headed by the chief election commissioner passed an order dismissing the plea.

Naek argued that the chief election commissioner has powers to transfer the election petition from one tribunal to another. The tribunal to which the petition is transferred shall proceed with the trial from the stage from which it was transferred and may, if it thinks fit, recall and examine any of the witnesses already examined.

The 18th Amendment substituted the word 'commissioner' with 'commission', which leaves the powers with the commission and not the chairperson alone. "It is a matter of record that the interim order was passed by the commission while the application was dismissed by the learned chief election commissioner in absence of the four other members of the commission," the judges noted in the order.

During the course of the hearing, advocate Muhammad Aslam Bhutta also filed comments on behalf of Ghous Ali Shah. He pointed out that under article 225 of the Constitution, Qaim Ali Shah cannot challenge the plea in the high court and has to appear before the election tribunal. Therefore, he argued, Qaim Ali Shah's petition before the SHC is not appropriate for hearing.

In response, Naek referred to the judgment passed by the Supreme Court in Imran Khan's case against the ECP. Abdullah Hanjrah, who was representing the provincial ECP, had also appeared during the hearing along with ECP deputy director Syed Rashid Hussain. Completing the course of arguments from all the relevant parties, the SHC bench reserved its verdict on Friday. The order will be issued on a date that will later be notified by the office.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2015.