PPP senator completes full term, thanks to court’s stay

PESHAWAR: Senator Adnan Khan of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has completed his term of six years on a stay order of the Peshawar High Court as the government has announced the schedule for the next Senate elections.
In February 2009, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) had granted stay order in a writ petition to Adnan Khan, allowing him to contest the Senate elections subject to the verdict of the court.Interestingly, the stay orders in other cases were not prolonged but in the case of Adnan Khan the stay order remained in place for his complete term of six years as senator.
He got the stay order against the orders of the returning officer and Appellate Tribunal as he had been disqualified by the courts concerned from contesting the Senate elections. Senator Adnan Khan, who is son-in-law of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, was only 34 when he contested the 2009 Senate elections on a seat reserved for technocrats on the basis of the said stay order.
The petition has almost become anfractuous as he is about to retire from the Senate and the Election Commission of Pakistan has already issued the schedule of elections for filling the Senate seats.
During hearing of the writ petition, Qazi Muhammad Anwar, a counsel for the respondent Ali Gohar who had filed the petition with the returning officer for Senator Adnan’s disqualification, submitted in the division bench headed by Justice Nisar Hussain Khan that if the respondent was not in power the petition would have been decided in time.
“These are the cases due to which the courts face criticism,” Qazi Anwar told the bench. The court had fixed February 10 for the next hearing of the case in which the respondents did not take interest.
Throughout the hearing of the case, the petitioner engaged prominent lawyers to prolong the stay order on one pretext or the other.In the beginning, Senator Adnan hired former attorney general Malik Qayyum, who got his stay order from the high court. Later, Malik Qayyum was replaced by another former attorney general Makhdum Ali Khan as the petitioner’s counsel. In around 31 hearings of the case, the petitioner’s counsel did not appear in more than 20 hearings.
Adnan Khan’s nomination papers for the seat reserved for technocrats from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were rejected by the returning officer on February 14, 2009.The returning officer had observed that Adnan Khan did not qualify the definition of a technocrat as he did not possess the experience of 20 years in the relevant field as required under Section 2(d) of Conduct of General Elections Order, 2002 for a candidate.
The appellate tribunal comprising Justice Jehanzeb Rahim of the high court had also dismissed his appeal and maintained the decision of the returning officer on February 19, 2009. The tribunal had ruled that Adnan Khan was hardly 34 years old and had got his master’s degree from the Preston University in 2001.
The tribunal observed that Adnan Khan had mentioned himself as a marketing consultant and keeping in view his 20 years experience he should have started the said consultancy at the age of 14 when he had not even passed the Class-VIII examination.
Adnan Khan then appealed to the PHC in a writ petition and he was allowed to contest the Senate election. The court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to make arrangements for his notification as candidate.
Subsequently, the high court expressed displeasure over the non-appearance of the petitioner’s counsel during several hearings and observed that no further adjournments would be allowed. However, the hearing of the case continued to be adjourned.
Qazi Muhammad Anwar said that after the polls, a candidate Ali Gohar had also filed an election petition before the election tribunal on the same grounds. However, the election tribunal had adjourned hearing of the election petition for an indefinite period and observed that it would be heard after the high court decides the petition.