ISLAMABAD: The ruling PML-N heaved a sigh of relief on Monday as the Supreme Court suspended the May 4 decision of an election tribunal to de-seat Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique. The tribunal had also ordered re-election in Lahore’s NA-125 constituency.

“The operation of the impugned order is suspended pending a decision by this court,” ordered Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, who heads a three-member bench which had taken up an appeal filed by Mr Rafique seeking reversal of the tribunal’s ruling.

The interim order allowed the PML-N stalwart to retain his ministerial portfolio, although for not very long.

The Supreme Court also asked the election tribunal to submit the complete trial record and issued notices to the ECP secretary, the returning officer for NA-125 and other respondents, including PTI candidate Hamid Khan who had lost the election.

The hearing was adjourned for a month.

The stay granted by the apex court after a brief preliminary hearing will also benefit Mian Naseer, a winning candidate from PP-155 who was also de-seated by the same election tribunal.

Saad Rafique was represented by senior counsel Khawaja Haris Ahmed and Hamid Khan by Advocate Ahmed Awais.

“We will fight on merit and I have complete confidence that I will get justice,” Mr Rafique told reporters after the hearing.

He regretted that he had been made a target by Imran Khan and PTI Vice President Hamid Khan and said the tribunal had never held him guilty of committing rigging; it only pointed out certain malpractices during the election.

Mr Rafique said he wanted to go back to his constituency for a fresh mandate, but the party leadership thought it was necessary to clear his name of all charges by approaching the Supreme Court.

PTI chief Imran Khan termed the Supreme Court order “just a stay” and accused the PML-N of deliberately misleading people. “Soon the truth will be separated from the falsehood,” he added.

Saad Rafique had moved the appeal against the tribunal’s decision on May 7 – the day the Election Commission de-notified him as member of the National Assembly.

The ECP had issued the notification following the May 4 decision of the Faisalabad election tribunal which allowed the petition of Hamid Khan and ordered the commission to hold a fresh election in the constituency within 60 days.

In his appeal, Mr Rafique had argued that the tribunal’s order was manifestly illegal and without lawful authority because it was based on gross misconception of law and principles warranting interferences in the election matters and de-seating of an elected representative of the people.

The tribunal’s decision, he said, was in effect tantamount to penalising the returned candidate (Saad Rafique) and the electorate of NA-125 for real or purported fault of others.

The appeal recalled that a certified copy of the May 4 order was delivered to the petitioner on May 6, the perusal of which revealed that while the preliminary objections raised by the appellant (Khawaja Rafique) to the maintainability of the election petition have been rejected, the tribunal had categorically held with respect to the questions whether his election was procured or induced by corrupt or illegal practice, and whether any corrupt or illegal practice was committed by the returned candidate or his election agent that neither of these stood proved on the record.

“The May 4 order is violative of the established principles of the law repeatedly laid down by the Supreme Court with respect to the sanctity attached to the electoral process and the quality and quantum of evidence required for declaring an election to be void as a whole,” the petitioner said.

Mr Rafique argued that the tribunal’s findings were based on mere conjectures and surmises and as such was not tenable in the eye of the law. Besides, he added, Hamid Khan had miserably failed to prove the case as pleaded by him in the election petition. Therefore, the tribunal’s decision was not sustainable in the eye of the law, he contended.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2015

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