Pleas against nominations rejection accepted

LAHORE
The Lahore High Court Justice Ibad-ur-Rehman Lodhi on Tuesday ruled that rejection of nomination papers of candidates having proposer and seconders from other constituencies is illegal and unconstitutional.
The court said this while accepting various identical petitions challenging rejection of their nomination papers. The judge held, "Firstly, the returning officers and then the appellate authorities also fell in error while not appreciating the real spirit and legislative intent in providing at least two entities in which either of any one can be adopted to adjudge the qualification of proposer or seconder to hold such valid position on showing their inclusion as voters in either the Union Council or the Ward and, thus, rejection of nomination papers of the petitioners is an act, which is not supported by any law and; therefore, is not sustainable."
The written order read that in this view of the matter, all the writ petitions are allowed; the impugned orders rejecting the nomination papers of the petitioners and dismissal of their appeals are set aside, and the nomination papers, respectively filed by the petitioners in constituencies concerned, stand accepted.
In all the petitions, nomination papers of all the duly qualified persons/candidates were rejected only on the ground that, their proposers or seconders, were not the voters of the relevant wards and appeals filed were also dismissed.
Section 27 of the Punjab Local Government Act, 2013, which provides qualifications and disqualifications for candidates and elected members, does not contain any embargo or his proposal or secondment as to the candidature by the persons, who must be the voters of the relevant "ward", the order said.
The order said, according to Rule 12 (2) of Punjab Local Government (conduct of elections), any voter of "a Union Council or Ward" may propose or second the name of any duly qualified person to be a candidate for an election of a member or as the case may be, the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of a Union Council.
The word "or" figuring in between "Union Council" and "Ward" is of much significance, the judge said. In view of the principles of interpretation, word "or" is commonly and ordinarily used in disjunctive sense, he said.
The judge said, Mr SM Zafar, in Understanding Statutes, Canons of Construction, while giving broad principles of interpretation of word "or" has noted that the same is used in a Statute in disjunctive sense indicating an alternative, presenting a choice of either. Further, it is noted that if this disjunctive conjunction "or" is used, the various members of the sentence are to be taken separately. Applying such principle of interpretation on the provisions of Rule 12(2) of the Punjab Local Governments (Conduct of Elections) Rules, 2013, the word "Union Council" and "Ward" are used separately providing two different bodies or entities for proposers and seconders of any duly qualified person as to his candidature for his election to the office of member or as the case may be, the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of a Union Council.