KARACHI: An election tribunal on Tuesday allowed Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan leader Dr Farooq Sattar to contest the upcoming elections from NA-245 (Karachi).

The MQM-P leader had challenged an order of the returning officer of NA-245 for rejecting his nomination papers since he did not mention the details of two cases pending against him.

The lawyer for the appellant submitted that his client had mentioned the details of around 30 cases in the nomination papers, but was not aware of these two cases.

Therefore, the counsel maintained that the appellant approached the court and obtained bail in both cases.

The tribunal headed by Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed set aside the order of returning officer and allowed Dr Sattar to contest elections.

Fehmida Mirza’s plea allowed

Another election tribunal headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi allowed an appeal of the former speaker of National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza who had filed nomination papers for a reserved seat for women in the National Assembly.

Dr Mirza, a former Pakistan Peoples Party leader who is now taking part in the polls from the platform of the Grand Democratic Alliance, filed an appeal against the ruling of a returning officer for rejecting her nomination papers on the ground that Mirza Sugar Mill was a loan defaulter in which she was a minor shareholder.

The appellant submitted that the election tribunal and a full bench of the SHC had already handed down judgments in her favour when similar issue was raised in the previous elections.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2018