PESHAWAR, Oct 24: A two-member bench of the Supreme Court here on Wednesday dismissed a petition filed against an order of the Chief Election Commissioner pertaining to the local bodies elections.

The bench issued directives to the petitioner, Arbab Aamir Ayub, belonging to a political family of Peshawar, to file an election petition before the election tribunal concerned.

The bench comprising Justice Mian Muhammad Ajmal and Justice Tanveer Ahmad Khan observed that when the high court had not interfered in the orders of the CEC under its constitutional jurisdiction then how could the Supreme Court declare that order illegal.

Advocate Qazi Muhammad Anwer appeared for the petitioner and argued that the election commissioner had no powers to intervene when a candidate was declared successful after consolidation of the results. He added that only an election tribunal was competent to decide an election dispute.

He argued that the CEC had counted about 300 such votes which did not carry signatures of the presiding officer, a requirement for validity of a ballot paper.

The bench asked Mr Anwer to agitate the same point before the election tribunal.

The petitioner had earlier filed a writ petition before the Peshawar High Court, requesting to set aside that order of the CEC through which he had declared Usman Alam Jhagra, rival candidate of the petitioner, the Nazim of union council Meera Kachori.

The high court had dismissed his petition on June 19.

Arbab Aamir is brother of former MNA, Arbab Zahir, whereas his rival Usman Alam Jhagra is nephew of ARD’s secretary general, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra. The legal battle between both the rivals has been in progress since the 4th phase of local government elections were held on July 2, 2001.

Initially, Mr Jhagra was declared winner by the returning officer. However, after a recount Mr Aamir was declared successful as about 300 votes were excluded from the count as those ballot papers did not carry signatures of the presiding officer.

Mr Jhagra then approached the CEC who on July 17 last year set aside the order of returning officer and declared Mr Jhagra the UC Nazim.

Mr Aamir had challenged the order of the CEC before the high court on the grounds that the CEC had no powers to decide an election dispute and only an election tribunal was empowered to do so. However, the petition was dismissed by the high court following which Mr Jhagra took oath of his office.