June 25, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 20, 1429

LAHORE, June 24: The Lahore High Court has observed that PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif has been “scandalising, abusing, disobeying and ridiculing” the judiciary.

In its detailed verdict on Mr Sharif’s candidature for by-election for a National Assembly seat, the LHC bench comprising Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha, Justice M. Bilal Khan and Justice Shabbar Raza Rizvi said he was “a convict who had submitted a false affidavit” along with his nomination papers.

“… Hence he is disqualified to contest upcoming by-election in view of the express provisions of Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution to be read with Section 99(f)(g) of the Representation of Peoples Act of 1976.”

Referring to the observations made by one of the members of the election tribunal, Justice Hafiz Tariq Naseem, the bench said: “We agree with the counsel for the petitioner that maligning, defaming and abusing of judiciary is not targeted by the respondent against any individual, rather it is against the whole judiciary which is also obvious from respondent’s letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner.”

The bench said Mr Sharif had been convicted by an accountability court in a reference against him whereby he was sentenced under Section 10 read with Section 9(a)(v) of the NAB Ordinance and sentenced to 14 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs20,000,000 in default of payment of the fine he was to undergo three-year imprisonment. He had also been disqualified for 21 years from being elected, chosen, appointed or nominated as member or representative of any public office or any statutory or local authority of government of Pakistan.The bench also agreed with the petitioner’s counsel that the Presidential Order under Article 45 of the Constitution “does not exonerate the respondent from the sentence and conviction recorded by the court of competent jurisdiction, particularly, when he failed to produce the presidential order”.

The bench held that the finding of the returning officer allowing respondent to contest elections “is not correct in the presence of the orders of the returning officer earlier passed on Dec 3, 2007 at the time of general elections.

There is no justification for the returning officer to observe that no document regarding conviction of the candidate was produced before him. The order of conviction passed by the accountability court in the Attock Fort in a reference was available on record”.

“The member of the election tribunal,” the bench said, “had rightly observed that the orders of the returning officer was not in consonance with the provision of the law, and thus, set aside the orders of the returning office and declared him disqualified to contest bye-elections.”