May 31, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 25, 1429

PESHAWAR, May 30: An election tribunal of the Peshawar High Court on Friday directed the MNA from Bajaur Agency, Akhundzada Chittan, to file reply to two election petitions seeking his disqualification.

The tribunal comprising Justice Ziauddin Khattak fixed June 16 for next hearing of the two identical election petitions filed by the losing candidates, Shahabuddin Khan and Guldad Khan, requesting the tribunal to de-seat Akhundzada Chittan, who got elected as MNA from NA-44, Bajaur Agency.

During last hearing the tribunal had ordered publication of an advertisement for the appearance of Mr Chittan as he had not been appearing despite repeated notices.

Mr Chittan appeared on Friday along with his counsel Muzamil Khan stating that he was not aware about these petitions and had witnessed the advertisement. He requested the tribunal to give him some time for filing the reply.

Both the petitioners claimed that Mr Chittan was not a graduate, a precondition for a candidate contesting general elections. They alleged that he had submitted a forged graduation degree with his nomination papers.

Mr Chittan had won the Feb 18 elections by securing 6257 votes against 5203 and 4648 votes received by Mr Shahabuddin and Mr Guldad respectively.

Meanwhile, the tribunal fixed June 13 for hearing an application filed by federal minister for environment, Hameedullah Jan Afridi seeking dismissal of an election petition filed against him by his rival candidate.

The minister also filed a reply to the election petition filed against him by Saeedullah Afridi and denied the allegations levelled against him.

The applicant has requested the tribunal to dismiss the said election petition on technical grounds. He stated that the petitioner had not signed the election petition and had also not fulfilled some other formalities under the Representation of Peoples Act. He added that under section 55 of the said act the chief election commissioner had to turn down a petition if those requirements were not fulfilled.

The petitioner Saeedullah Afridi has alleged that Mr Hameedullah s/o Abdullah Jan was serving against the post of watchman at Government Primary School, Jan Khan village in Khyber Agency.

He added that till last year he had been receiving salary against the said post.

He stated that under the constitution a government servant could not contest general election unless two years had passed since he had left that job.

Mr Hameedullah has already furnished an affidavit on behalf of a person named Hameedullah s/o Multan Khan stating that in fact he was the watchman at the said school.

In that affidavit the said Hameedullah stated that at the time of joining the service in 1994 the name of his father was erroneously mentioned as Abdullah instead of Multan Khan.