- Abid Sher Ali urges court to withhold notification after losing polls by 1,201 votes to PTI’s Farrukh Habib
- PTI’s Dr Nadia Aziz files petition against PML-N’s Hamid Hameed’s win from NA-90
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to withhold the notification of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Farrukh Habib’s victory, who had emerged as the winner from Faisalabad’s NA-108 constituency.
He defeated Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Abid Sher Ali even after a vote recount.
Justice Shahid Karim issued the directions on a petition filed by Abid Sher Ali.
Earlier on Friday, Ali had approached the LHC after a notification issued by Returning Officer Shakeel Ahmed on Thursday.
The notification showed that the PML-N leader had lost the poll by 1,201 votes to Habib. It was decreased by only 10 votes after the recount.
In his petition, Ali has alleged that “bogus copies of Form-45 were drafted to ensure the PTI candidate’s victory from NA-108”.
Furthermore, he urged the court to “stay the notification of Habib’s victory until the petition is decided”.
After hearing all arguments, Justice Karim directed ECP to withhold the notification. Notices were also issued to the ECP and other parties, seeking their responses by August 7.
Meanwhile, the LHC judge also directed the ECP to withhold the notification of victory of PML-N candidate Hamid Hameed who won the polls from the NA-90 constituency of Sargodha.
In this case, PTI’s Dr Nadia Aziz had filed a petition against Hameed’s win by a lead of 8,000 votes.
In the petition, Dr Nadia said, “The counting of votes at polling stations in the NA-90 constituency was flawed and the RO had rejected the request for a recount.”
She urged the court to issue orders for a recount and to withhold the notification until the recount is completed.
Justice Karim ordered the ECP to stay the notification. The commission, RO and other parties were directed to submit replies to the notices issued to them by August 7.
