PESHAWAR, Feb 11: The candidature of former provincial minister and leader of Awami National Party, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, on the provincial assembly constituency of PF-3, Peshawar, was challenged before the Peshawar High Court on Monday.

The rival candidate, Mohammad Iqbal Khan, hailing from Pakistan People’s Party, filed a writ petition claiming that Mr Bilour and his spouse were loan defaulters and under the election laws he was not qualified to contest polls.

The petitioner has also filed an application with the writ petition requesting the court for early hearing of the case as general elections are scheduled for Feb 18.

The petition was filed through Advocate Naqeeb Khan Takkar. The respondents in the petition are the chief election commissioner, the Peshawar district returning officer, returning officer of PF-3, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, assistant registrar of companies, and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

The petitioner alleged that an amount of Rs27.28 million had been outstanding against Mr Bilour, his spouse Nighat Bilour, his son Usman Bilour and daughter-in-law Ms Samar Bilour. He stated that Mr Bilour had availed the loan facility from Habib Bank Limited in the name of Bilour Match Industry.

He stated that the bank had now filed recovery suit against them before the Banking Court No. 1 presided over by Attaullah Khan. He added that the next date of hearing in that suit was Feb 26.

Under section 8 D (2) (O), a person shall be disqualified from being elected as a member of the Parliament or a provincial assembly if he has obtained a loan of an amount of two million rupees or more, from any bank, financial institution, cooperative society or cooperative body in his own name or in the name of his spouse or any of his dependents, which stands unpaid for more than one year from the due date, or has had such loan written off.