Havelian tehsil council seats: PHC suspends ECP notification

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday suspended a notification of the Election Commission of Pakistan, which was going to declare the names of PTI candidates on reserved seats including women, youth and minority for Tehsil Council Havelian in Abbottabad.

A single bench headed by Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth stayed the election on reserved seats till January 12, next hearing in the case.

The bench also put on notice the Election Commission of Pakistan, directing it to explain the question of law raised in the petition.

The petition was filed by Sardar Arsal Pervaiz, tehsil nazim Havelian, Nadeem Ahmad Mughul, district councilor Abbottabad, and Malik Shafiq Awan, PML-N general secretary Abbottabad, through their lawyers Shumail Ahmad Butt and Bilal Khan.

During hearing, Shumail Ahmad Butt submitted that the ECP had earlier de-seated 21 candidates of PTI including district nazim Abbottabad Sher Bahadar on defection clause in violation of the party’s discipline and floor crossing, which was maintained by the high court and Supreme Court.

He submitted that the ECP is going to announce the PTI candidates’ names on reserved seats provided by the party today. He submitted that under the law, the ECP had first to complete the total strength of the tehsil council as by-election on three general seats is still to be held.

Through the notification, he said, the ECP has proceeded with a misconceived and rather an arbitrary notion that the reserved seats must all be allocated to the PTI candidates, without realising that the picture has changed significantly since the three de-seated candidates for general seats all belonged to PTI, which may go in favour of any party in the election.

He requested the court to restrain the ECP from declaring the PTI candidates on reserved seats till decision in the petition.