PPP preparing petition to challenge victory of Sanjrani

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Secretariat is yet to provide certified results and notification of the chairman and deputy chairman in elections of March 12 to the opposition lawyers.

The declared new chairman and deputy chairman are availing privileges as office holders but the opposition is being denied the relevant documents under the pretext of coronavirus dissemination by keeping the Senate Secretariat closed.

According to well-placed parliamentary sources, the PPP lawyers have drafted the constitutional writ petition to challenge the declaration of Sadiq Sanjrani as chairman of the Upper House. The petition has been drafted by senators Farook Hameed Naek, Mian Raza Rabbani, Syed Nayyar Bukhari and Sardar Latif Khan Khosa. The petition challenges the poll counts made by presiding officer Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who rejected seven votes of Senator Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani after declaring them invalid, which helped Sanjrani win despite bagging less votes. The petition also mentions the political leaning of the presiding officer who was appointed by the president without seeking the consent of the opposition.

The sources revealed that more than 25 judgments of various superior courts of Pakistan and other countries have been included in Gilani's petition.