21 July 2004	Wednesday	03 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

LAHORE, July 20: The Lahore High Court registrar office on Tuesday turned a writ petition of Advocate M. D. Tahir seeking disqualification of Shaukat Aziz from contesting by-election into a representation and sent it to the Chief Election Commissioner for necessary action.

The registrar office informed Mr Tahir that the high court was not a forum competent to hear election matters. The appropriate forum, according to the office, was the Election Commission of Pakistan to whom the petition had been sent.

Advocate Tahir filed the petition on July 16 challenging the bona fides of Mr Aziz, the prime minister-in-waiting, as a citizen of Pakistan and sought his disqualification for contesting by-election to National Assembly seats.

He requested the court to order the ECP to stop the by-election process. The petitioner submitted that Mr Aziz was a foreign national and working to advance an alien agenda in Pakistan. His election would jeopardise the national interest.

SIALKOT JAIL CASE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday adjourned till the second week of September the hearing of a writ petition filed by the families of four additional district and sessions judges killed in the Sialkot jail incident on July 25 last year.

The families pleaded in the petition that the trial in the case was being conducted by judge Syed Iftikhar Husain Bokhari who did not qualify to proceed because he had supervised the investigation in the firing incident.

They submitted that they intended to call the trial court presiding officer as a witness to the incident. But they could not do so because the law did not allow a trial judge to be called as a witness.

Judges Asif Mumtaz Cheema, Syed Shehryar Bokhari, Shahid Munir Ranjha and Sagheer Anwar were among those killed in the Sialkot jail when, on an inspection visit, they were taken hostage by some inmates and the police started firing in an operation to secure their liberty.