LAHORE, Sept 12: PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif and Kulsoom Nawaz were disqualified on Thursday by an election tribunal of the Lahore High Court from contesting the October elections, ousting the entire former ruling family from the electoral race.

Ex-premier Nawaz Sharif has already withdrawn his candidature in solidarity with Benazir Bhutto against the rejection of her papers from Sindh.

Shahbaz had filed nomination papers from one national (NA-119) and two provincial seats (PP-141 and 142) while Kulsoom was contesting the polls from two national assembly constituencies (NA-119 and 122) of Lahore. The nomination papers of both had been cleared by the returning officers concerned.

The tribunal, comprising Justice Najamuz Zaman and Justice Pervez Ahmad, allowed three appeals filed by Khwaja Farooq Hussain, Khwaja Mansoor Hussain and Kamal Barakullah challenging the candidature of Shahbaz Sharif from NA-119, PP-141 and PP-142 and that of Kulsoom Nawaz from NA-119 and NA-122. Moreover, the tribunal disallowed Kulsoom’s appeal against the rejection of her papers from NA-120 by the officer concerned.

The tribunal observed that Shahbaz’s signatures on his original papers and on the affidavit produced by his counsel Ashtar Ausaf Ali were not the same which had given rise to suspicion of forgery.

The tribunal was also of the view that different oaths required to be given by the two candidates and their proposer and seconders in their nomination papers were required to be attested by the Consulate General in Jeddah which had not been got done.

The court rejected the defence plea that no such attestation was required since the election law was completely silent regarding an authority’s attestation of the oaths given by a candidate sitting abroad.

“If the relevant law is silent, we have to go by the general law which prescribes that all kinds of power of attorney and undertakings given by anyone residing abroad have to be attested by the consulate concerned,” observed the tribunal.

The appellants in their appeals had objected that the nomination papers of both Shahbaz and Kulsoom did not bear their original signatures.

It was also objected that the authority letter issued by the two Sharif family members had not been attested by the Consulate General of Pakistan in Jeddah. According to the petitioners, these nomination papers and the authority letters were signed by the candidate while sitting outside Pakistan and there was no valid verification of the signatures on both the documents.

Shahbaz was accused of being a guarantor to two amounts of loan — Rs355.463 million and Rs1072.227 million — in the payment of which Ittefaq Brothers (pvt) Ltd and Ittefaq Foundries had wilfully defaulted. It was argued that Shahbaz was a major shareholder and director of both the companies and by virtue of such default stood disqualified under the election laws.

While raising the third allegation against the candidature of Shahbaz, the appellants claimed that he had been nominated an accused in a fake police encounter case registered with Sabza Zar Police on March 29, 2001. It was submitted that the case was currently pending before an anti-terrorist court of Lahore and therefore he could not contest elections.

The tribunal pronounced the short rejection order and was expected to issue detailed judgment on Friday.