Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday sought assistance of Punjab attorney general and advocate general on a petition for enforcement of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution on the candidates of the upcoming local government election in the province.
Munir Ahmad filed the petition through Azhar Siddique. Justice Aminuddin Khan took up the petition and remarked that the questions raised by the petitioner required interpretation of the Constitution. The judge said assistance of principal law officers of the federation and the province of Punjab was necessary in the case, therefore, he issued notices to the attorney general and advocate general for December 16.
Earlier, the petitioner’s counsel said Election Commission Pakistan (ECP) was constitutionally duty bound to conduct free and fair elections and also to remove any decision of the executive organ that may hinder conduct of free polls. He said the Constitution gave criteria of qualification/disqualification for the election of public representatives in Articles 62 and 63. However, he said, Punjab Local Government Act 2013 contained no such criteria for the candidates thus allowed all convicted, bank defaulters, dual nationals and fake degree holders to contest the LG polls. Siddique pointed out that chairman of a union council would be a public authority who had to act as an arbitrator in family matters while dealing with the divorce disputes. He said if an uneducated, non-knowing of family laws and unqualified person was elected as chairman of a union council how he could be able to dispense justice with public at large. Therefore, he said, highly sensible, law knowing, educated and qualified persons were required to be elected on the post of chairman of UC. He prayed to the court to direct the ECP to implement provisions of Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution on the candidates of the upcoming LG polls.
NA-118 VOTE VERIFICATION: Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh of LHC on Wednesday sought assistance of the attorney general (AG) on petition of PML-N MNA Malik Riaz challenging an order of the election tribunal to NADRA for verification of votes of his constituency NA-118, Lahore-I, through thumb impressions.
Judge issued notice to the AG for December 6. Riaz moved the petition against an order of the election tribunal issued an order on petition of PTI defeated candidate Hamid Zaman for verification of votes through thumb impressions. He submitted that there was not provision of verification of votes through thumb impressions in the law. He also said that it was impossible to verify about 150,000 votes polled. He said that the impunged order was without justification and illegal. He requested to declare the order as illegal and having no effect. On petition of Hamid Zaman, the tribunal on November 18 had directed NADRA to check thumb impressions of the voters on ballot papers to verify their authenticity.
SARWAR BAILED AGAIN: LHC on Wednesday granted seven-day protective bail to former federal minister Ghulam Sarwar, facing charges of having fake degree, and directed him to approach trial court for the relief of bail.
Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) had lodged a case against Sarwar for obtaining a fake degree of FA to appear in BA examination to meet the graduation condition in general elections of 2008. It was alleged that Sarwar son of Muhammad Hayat Khan obtained duplicate diploma originally issued to another candidate of namesake but his father’s name was Abdul Hameed Khan. Sarwar used the duplicate diploma for appearing in graduation examinations and obtained BA degree finally.
The ACE after investigation had lodged a case against the former minister Sarwar, former chairman of Punjab Board of Technical Education (PBTE), its secretary and two other officials for issuing the duplicate diploma unlawfully.
It’s never easy holding LG polls in line with Constitution
