LAHORE: A writ petition has been filed in the Lahore High Court for changing the returning officer of NA-122 for being ‘ineligible’ and ‘incompetent’ to hold by-election in the constituency.

Advocate Malik Munsif Awan, a candidate from the constituency, filed the petition stating that the RO Zahid Iqbal failed to perform his statutory duty as prescribed under the Constitution and Representation of Peoples Act, 1976.

He says the Election Commission of Pakistan may scrutinise the nomination papers of by-elections candidates by implementing articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution in letter and spirit after uploading their qualifications and disqualifications details on its website.

He states that a strict action may be taken by ECP against the returning officers who fail to perform their duties and could not implement the constitutional as well as statutory provisions of RoP Act in letter and spirit.

The petitioner prays to the court to remove the returning officer from the seat and order the ECP to appoint new RO on merit in a transparent manner.

Published in Dawn October 4th, 2015

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