F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Election Tribunal Monday approved the petition of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and candidate for Senate polls, Pervaiz Rashid against the rejection of his nomination papers for hearing.
The Election Tribunal has issued the notice on the application to the concerned departments and has sought all the related record.
Justice Shahid Waheed heard the appeal as Election Tribunal. Khalid Ishaq, Azam Nazir Tarar and Ahsan Bhon appeared before the tribunal.
PML-N leader’s lawyer Azam Nazir Tarar adopted the stance that returning officer had rejected his client’s nomination papers for Senate elections on the basis of being a defaulter of the Punjab House.
He said in the RO’s decision the reason for disqualifying his client was stated as his client is a defaulter of Rs9.6million.
He said his client did not receive any notice from the Punjab House in 2019 and has also requested the Returning Officer to let him pay the dues, which was rejected. He said his Pervaiz Rashid was issued a photocopy of notices from Punjab House to pay dues, however, my client tried to pay them but the concerned authorities didn’t accept it.
Responding to the counsel’s argument, Justice Shahid Waheed asked why the dues were not paid on time over which, the lawyer said that as per Supreme Court’s (SC) decisions, this money can be paid at any time.
Azam Nazir further told that Pervaiz Rashid wanted to pay the dues when he checked out from the Punjab House. Tarar said they had requested the Returning officer for paying the dues which he had rejected.
Justice Shahid asked under which article of the constitution they made this request? Tarar said they requested the RO under article no 112 of the Election Act for the submission of the dues.
Upon this, Justice Shahid said how the Returning Officer can direct a department to collect the dues as the RO is not a court and asked what was the last date to submit the dues. Tarar told the Tribunal that as per Supreme Court’s orders, the dues can be submitted till the election date.
He said to show his willingness his client has submitted applications to the Secretary C & W, CM Secretariat and returning officer and alleged that upon government’s pressure, the RO did not allow his client to submit the dues.
Justice Shahid Waheed said he has to deposit the dues in the bank but he did not go to the bank. Upon this, Tarar said his client was not given the account number for this purpose.
However, Justice Shahid noted that the bank account number was already mentioned on page 40 of the appeal submitted by the applicant.
Justice Shahid said in the appeal, the applicant has never said that he did not use the Punjab House’s room and he should have cleared the dues when he had left the room.
Tarar said Punjab House could have written to the chairman Senate for recovering the outstanding dues.
Upon this Justice Shahid said there was no mention in the appeal that said the room was not under the use of Pervaiz Rashid from January 200 till 2018.
However, Tarar was of the view that his client could not be disqualified for the non-payment of the dues as the decision, in this case, was yet to be given by the court.
He said if his client won the case against Punjab House regarding outstanding dues then no one could compensate if he was not allowed to contest the elections.
Tarar requested the tribunal to pass an order to let his client submit the outstanding dues and include his name in the final list of candidates for the Senate polls.
Ahsan Bhon Advocate told the tribunal, that Pervaiz Rashid has declared while submitting his nomination papers that he did not owe any dues to Punjab House.
He said Pervaiz Rashid had deposited Rs400000 of Punjab House.
Subsequently, the tribunal has issued notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and directed the Punjab House representative to attend tomorrow’s hearing with all the relevant record. On February 18, 2021, the ECP had rejected the nomination papers of Pervaiz Rashid submitted for the Senate polls.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), while recording objections over the candidacy of Pervaiz Rashid, told that the PML-N leader had filed his nomination papers for the general seat, however, he had also mentioned the technocrat seat in his affidavit. PML-N candidate had provided misleading statements in his details.
He was found guilty in a case pertaining to leaking the secrets of the national institutions, the PTI representative stated.
