SHC disposes of 171 poll pleas

The specially-constituted benches of the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday disposed of 171 petitions regarding the acceptance or rejection of nomination papers of national and provincial assemblies’ candidates in the province.

After this disposal, only 11 petitions remained pending at SHC in Karachi while no petitions were pending at SHC in Hyderabad, Larkana Circuit Court and the Sukkur bench. According to the SHC’s registrar office, 182 petitions were submitted in the principal and other circuit courts in this regard.

Chief Justice of SHC Justice Ahmed Ali M Shaikh directed the office to prepare a list of election-related cases of candidates based on the acceptance or rejection of their nomination papers and place them before the available benches to be decided within two days.

SHC registrar’s spokesman said that in compliance with the Chief Justice’s directives, 28 election petitions have been disposed of at the principal seat in Karachi while the 11 remaining cases will be heard today (Friday).

He added that all 78 cases in Hyderabad and 43 cases in Larkana were disposed of while all 22 cases in Sukkur have also been decided.

Safoora Goth attack

An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday granted interim bail to Zahid Abdul Qadir, an arms dealer, who was alleged to have facilitated the bus attack in Safoora Goth that left around 47 people in 2015.

At the hearing held at Central Jail, the judge observed that the prosecution had failed to prove that Qadir had provided illegal arms to the attackers and that those arms were used in the incident. The court granted the bail in the sum of Rs200,000.