ISLAMABAD: Chief Elec­tion Commissioner retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza dismissed on Thursday a plea of Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah questioning credentials of an election tribunal hearing a petition filed against him and seeking transfer of the case to any other tribunal in the province.

Mr Shah has retained the office of chief minister for a second consecutive term after being declared winner from a provincial assembly constituency, PS-29 (Khair­pur), and a petition against him is pending before a tribunal in Karachi which is headed by Dr Zafar Ahmad Khan Sherwani.

Read: Tribunal restrained from deciding election plea against CM

What set the alarm bells ringing for Mr Shah, who is also president of Sindh chapter of the PPP, was the tribunal’s recent decision of declaring the election of PPP’s Nawab Ali Wassan from NA-215 (Khairpur) null and void and declaring PML-N leader and former chief minister Syed Ghous Ali Shah as winner without assigning any reason.

Ghous Ali Shah, who had lost both the national and provincial assembly seats from Khairpur in the 2013 elections, had filed a petition also against the chief minister.

Also read: Qaim denies charges of rigging before election tribunal

The judgments on both his petitions were reserved the same day, but only the verdict on NA-215 was announced on Dec 6.

A notification about the judgment was issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan, but suspended on Wednesday by the Supreme Court till a final adjudication on Nawab Wassan’s petition challenging the tribunal’s decision.

The CEC had taken up Qaim Ali Shah’s plea after assuming the office and reserved the judgment on it on Wednesday.

Also read: CM Sindh moves SHC over tribunal's vote verification orders

Former law minister Farooq H. Naek, the counsel for Qaim Ali Shah, was not present when the CEC announced the decision on Thursday. Ghous Ali Shah was present, however.

Elaborating on his allegations of bias against the tribunal’s presiding officer, the chief minister in his application said his name had been mentioned in the Dec 6 judgment with mala fide intentions.

He argued that mentioning his name without any prima facie proof against him showed that the tribunal had made up its mind to “de-seat the returned candidate from PS-29”.

He alleged that even otherwise the conduct of the presiding officer had remained biased against the PPP and its leadership.

Also read: Poll tribunals told to proceed with pleas against CM, others

He recalled that a transfer petition had been moved when the said presiding officer as district and sessions judge in Karachi was to hear a case about Mir Murtaza Bhutto’s murder on the basis of bias and certain other allegations against him.

Ultimately, the matter was heard and decided by another presiding officer.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014