ISLAMABAD, Sept 28: Ruling Pakistan Muslim League’s senior vice-president Lt-Gen (retd) Abdul Majeed Malik on Wednesday petitioned the Supreme Court for contesting the Oct 6 election for the post of district nazim Chakwal.

In his petition, filed by Advocate-on-Record Mehr Khan Malik on behalf of senior advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, the PML leader requested the court to accept his appeal against rejection of his nomination papers and hear the case on Thursday.

Rawalpindi District Returning Officer (DRO) Mirza Rafiuzzaman, Returning Officer Chaudhry Aurangzeb Khan, controller of examination (certificate) of Punjab University, and general councillor union council Chakwal city, who raised objection against Gen Malik’s matriculation certificate, have been made respondents in the petition.

In the 11-page petition, Gen Malik pleaded that the returning officer had never produced any material to show that his matriculation certificate was bogus or that he had never passed the matric exams in 1939.

“Not a single word has been said by the objector to show that the matriculation certificate was a forged document,” the petitioner said, adding that only the procedure adopted to get a duplicate copy of the matriculation certificate had been attacked.

The petitioner contended that only the university could explain it if there was any typographical error about the date of the issuance of the certificate.

That the date of preparation of the certificate was Aug 14, 2005 was a clerical typing mistake, which was rectified by the issuing authority and the dealing assistant on Aug 15, 2005, the petitioner said.

According to the petition, there is no reason to produce a bogus certificate by a person who has served as a military commander and held different high and important posts in the Pakistan Army.

Gen Malik contended that the district returning appellate authority had failed to examine the case objectively while rejecting his nomination papers which had resulted in miscarriage of justice.

He said documentary evidence and other factors showed that the DRO as well as the high court had erroneously rejected his nomination papers.

Justice Mohammad Shabir Akhtar of the LHC, Rawalpindi bench, had on Monday rejected the appeal of Gen Malik against the DRO’s decision.