LAHORE: A single bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) led by Justice Shahid Kareem issued the notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) returning officer and other parties on the petition filed against the acceptance of nomination papers of former finance minister Ishaq Dar and other candidates of ruling party for the Senate polls.
In the petition, objections were raised against the acceptance of nomination papers by Appellate Tribunal of LHC.
LHC announced the decision on the maintainability of a petition filed by a citizen named Munir Ahmad and issued the notices to the concerned parties.
LHC had earlier reserved the judgment on the maintainability of the petition.
According to Azhar Siddique, Appellate Tribunal had accepted the nomination papers of Ishaq Dar, Saadia Abbasi, Nuzhat Sadiq and Hafiz Abdul Kareem.
The petitioner pointed out that following the Elections Act 2017, candidates were allowed not to reveal their assets and other information and the process of scrutiny of nomination papers by returning officer was also affected.
The petitioner said that Ishaq Dar was an absconder and asked that how his nomination papers could be accepted.
The petitioner claimed that candidates for Senate elections had not provided the information about their assets and dual citizenship and other particulars in the nomination papers.
The lawyer of the petitioner requested that the decision on acceptance of nomination papers of Ishaq Dar, Saadia Abbasi and other candidates of Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) for Senate polls should be set aside.
The petitioner also requested in the petition that the Senate elections be postponed.
Further proceedings on the petition would start from March 1.
