LAHORE, Sept 11: Data Ganj Bakhsh Town Nazim Khwaja Hassaan filed a petition in the Lahore High Court on Thursday to preempt the voting to be held on Sept 23 on a recall motion tabled against him.

The Punjab Local Election Authority had restrained Khwaja Hassaan from using his powers through a notification and fixed Sept 23 as the date of voting on the recall motion.

Justice Raja Muhammad Sabir issued a notice to the Punjab advocate-general on Hassaan’s fresh petition for Sept 15. His other petition challenging the PLEA’s notification will also be taken up on the same date.

Khwaja Hassaan submitted that 639 subordinate union councils of Data Ganj Bukhsh Town constituted his electoral college under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance, 2001. The union council members were authorized to vote on the recall motion in the second phase of voting while 43 per cent voters, who had cast a vote of no-confidence against him during the first phase of voting last month, were not his electors.

He submitted that only union councillors could vote on the recall motion while the 46 town councillors were neither his electoral college nor they could vote on the motion as notified by the PLEA.

He claimed that in a number of petitions, the court had suspended the operation of the PLEA’s notifications regarding the voting on the recall motions tabled against various town Nazims and he deserved the same relief.

Justice Sabir, however, refused to suspend the operation of the notification and observed that since the AG had already been issued notice on the petition against the PLEA’s notification, it would not be appropriate to stay the voting on the recall motion without hearing the AG.