Senate elections: PHC disposes of petition challenging PTI leaders’ candidacy

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday disposed of the writ petition challenging the acceptance of the nomination papers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, including Murad Saeed and others for the upcoming Senate elections.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Wiqar Ahmad heard the writ petition, which had challenged the acceptance of the nomination papers of the PTI leaders, including Murad Saeed, Azam Swati, Khurram Zeeshan, Faisal Javed and Azhar Mashwani, for the senate polls.

Barrister Waqar Ali, Ali Azeem and Syed Sikandar Shah represented the PTI leaders.Mohsin Kamran appeared on behalf of the election commission.

The lawyer for the petitioner told the court that Murad Saeed had attached with his nomination papers the list of the 10 FIRs, which were registered against him when he was running for the National Assembly, but he did not do so while submitting nomination papers for the Senate election.

He said that Murad Saeed concealed his tax returns and the fact that he had been fined Rs50,000 by the election commission in connection with the local government elections. The lawyer said that the election commission had issued a notice to Murad Saeed, asking him to furnish the fine. He said that Murad Saeed was an absconder and had gone into hiding. He requested the court to reject the nomination of the other PTI leaders as well as they had also concealed facts in their tax returns.

The lawyer for Murad Saeed told the court that they had attached a list of the FIRs with the nomination papers about which they knew. He said that Murad Saeed had two bank accounts and all the details about them had been provided therein. Barrister Waqar appearing for Azam Swati said that the writ petition was non-maintainable, arguing that the petitioner had failed to plead his case before the election tribunal.