\u201cArticle 17 says no one can be barred from contesting election without valid reasons,\u201d Justice Shah observes
\nISLAMABAD
\nThe Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secured major relief from the top court on Friday as five of its candidates including incarcerated party president Parvez Elahi, were granted permission to contest the upcoming February 8 elections.
\nBesides Elahi, the Supreme Court on Friday approved appeals of PTI candidates Umer Aslam, Major (retd) Tahir Sadiq, Sanam Javaid Khan, and Shukat Basra against returning officer decisions to reject their nomination papers from different constituencies. Elahi has been allowed to contest the general election from the PP-32 constituency of Gujarat district.
\nThe former Punjab chief minister had approached the Supreme Court to contest the upcoming general elections and challenged the verdict of the Lahore High Court (LHC), upholding the Election Tribunal\u2019s decision of rejecting his nomination papers.
\nThe PTI president, presently confined in Adiala Jail, filed a petition in the apex court under Article 185(3) of the Constitution for leave to appeal against the judgment dated January 13, 2024, passed by the LHC in his petition. Elahi nomination papers were rejected from National Assembly constituency NA-64 (Gujrat-III) and Punjab Assembly\u2019s constituency PP-34 (Gujrat-VIII).
\nA three-member bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Athar Minallah heard Elahi\u2019s plea.
\nAdvocate Faisal Siddiqui represented Elahi in the case.
\nPresenting his arguments, Elahi\u2019s counsel highlighted anomalies in the objections raised by the rival candidates and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want a delay in elections,\u201d Siddiqui told the bench. He implored the court to grant permission to his client to contest the upcoming elections in Gujarat.
\nJustice Minallah observed that voters should not be deprived of their right to vote. He said a returning officer is supposed to facilitate and not obstruct the election process. \u201cIt is strange that all this is happening to only one political party,\u201d Justice Minallah remarked. Justice Shah said elections call for the inclusion of people and not exclusion. \u201cArticle 17 says that no one can be barred from contesting an election without valid reasons,\u201d he said.
\nThe SC judge said the Constitution allows enfranchisement and not disenfranchising the voters via elections. After hearing the arguments, the apex court declared the RO\u2019s decision to reject Elahi\u2019s nomination papers from PP-32 invalid and allowed him to contest polls from the Gujarat provincial assembly seat. Elahi withdrew appeals against the rejection of nomination papers from other constituencies including two NA seats.
\nA series of objections were raised against Elahi\u2019s nomination papers, which included the concealing of assets, non-disclosure of shares in different companies, non-compliance with the rule to open separate bank accounts for expenditures in both constituencies, technical mistakes in documents and submitting documents without verification from the oath commission.
\nThe senior PTI leader was initially arrested on June 1 last year in a Rs70 million graft case related to the embezzlement of development funds allocated for the Gujrat district and has been behind bars ever since.
\nHe was released several times in between, only to be re-arrested immediately in different cases, including a money laundering case and allegations of illegal appointments in the Punjab Assembly.
\nApart from Elahi, PTI candidates Tahir Sadiq and Omer Aslam Awan were allowed by the apex court to contest elections from NA- 49 (Attock) and NA-87 (Khushab) constituencies, respectively. <\/p>\n
Sanam has been allowed to contest polls from NA-119, NA-120, and PP-125 while Basra was cleared to fight elections from NA-163 (Bahawalnagar). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cArticle 17 says no one can be barred from contesting election without valid reasons,\u201d Justice Shah observes ISLAMABAD The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secured major relief from the top court on Friday as five of its candidates including incarcerated party president Parvez Elahi, were granted permission to contest the upcoming February 8 elections. Besides Elahi, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-383258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n