KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah must have had a sigh of relief over the recent decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan that did not extend the term of the Karachi election tribunal headed by Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, a former judge of the Sindh High Court, who was proceeding with an election petition against the CM’s victory.

The ECP, through a notification on Feb 28, extended for two months the contract period of eight election tribunals in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from March 1 to April 30, 2015.

The tenure of all five presiding officers of the tribunals in Punjab — Kazim Ali Malik (Lahore), Javed Rashid Mehboobi (Faisalabad), Rana Zahid Mehmood (Multan), Abdul Hafeez (Bahawalpur) and Wamiq Javed (Rawalpindi) was extended.

In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, the contract period of presiding officers Shahji Rehman Khan and Zia-ud-Din Khattak was extended, while the tenure of Muhammad Ashfaq Baloch (Hyderabad) was extended in Sindh.

However, the contract period of Judge Sherwani, the presiding officer of the Karachi election tribunal, was not extended although he had only one election petition pending disposal.

The election petition was filed against the election of Pakistan Peoples Party’s Syed Qaim Ali Shah by his rival candidate, Syed Ghous Ali Shah of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), initially at the Sukkur election tribunal, headed by Zaheeruddin Leghari.

However, it was later transferred to the Karachi election tribunal on the application of the chief minister, who alleged that the presiding officer of the Sukkur election tribunal was biased.

Expressing no-confidence in the head of the tribunal, he said that Mr Leghari was “biased” for being a mureed (disciple) of the Pir Pagara, the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, an ally of the PML-N.

While the Karachi election tribunal had almost completed the proceedings of the election appeal, the chief minister once again expressed no-confidence in the presiding officer and petitioned the SHC against Judge Sherwani. However, the CM’s plea was thrown out.

Later, the CM moved another application in the ECP seeking transfer of the election petition against him to any other tribunal in the province.

But the Chief Elec­tion Commissioner, retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza, dismissed his petition that questioned credentials of the presiding officer.

The CM assailed the rejection of his transfer application by the ECP through a constitutional petition in the SHC that on Feb 21 ordered the ECP to revisit within 20 days its verdict of dismissing the CM’s plea seeking transfer of the election petition against him from Karachi tribunal.

The counsel for the chief minister, Advocate Farooq H. Naek, submitted before the SHC that the presiding officer of the election tribunal, Dr Sherwani, was not impartial and had bias against his client.

He said the chief minister had filed an application under Section 58 of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1976, before the ECP, requesting it to transfer the election petition from the Karachi tribunal to any other tribunal but it was rejected.

The chief minister had won provincial assembly seat PS-29 (Khairpur) in the 2013 general elections. His victory was challenged by Syed Ghous Ali Shah who emerged the runner-up.

The PML-N candidate alleged massive irregularities in the elections and sought CM Shah’s disqualification.

The Karachi election tribunal was sent 40 cases and it decided 39 of them.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play