LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Thursday barred Rana Zahid of PML-N from contesting general election from NA-146, Arifwala, Sardar Ghulam Abbas from NA-64, Chakwal and Rana Asif Tausif from NA-105, Faisalabad.

A petition had been filed against the candidature of Rana Zahid accusing him of possessing fake graduation degree. The petitioner had stated that Mr Zahid was previously disqualified for fake degree but the returning officer and the appellate tribunal ignored the fact.

He asked the court to set aside the decisions of the RO and the tribunal and disqualify Zahid from contesting the polls.

A two-judge bench allowed the petition and set aside the impugned decisions barring Zahid from contesting the election.

Sardar Ghulam Abbas had approached the court against rejection of his nomination papers by the RO and the tribunal as well. He was accused of concealing details of his assets and being a tax defaulter. The bench upheld the decisions of the tribunal and dismissed the petition of Abbas.

Against Rana Tausif, petitioner Hanif Jutt pleaded that the retuning officer and election tribunal accepted the nomination papers of the respondent despite the fact he had not declared loans obtained from different banks in the names of his wife and dependants. Counsel for Tausif argued that the bank loans had been rescheduled. However, the bench allowed the petition and rejected the nomination papers of Tausif.

PFA: The Lahore High Court on Thursday dismissed as withdrawn a public interest petition challenging the removal of Noorul Ameen Mengal as director general of Punjab Food Authority (PFA).

Advocate General Punjab Imtiaz Rasheed Siddiqui told the court that Mr Mengal had relinquished the charge, therefore, the petition was no more maintainable.

At this, the petitioner’s counsel sought court’s permission to withdraw the petition.

The court granted the permission and dismissed the petition as withdrawn.

Previously, the court had allowed Mengal to continue with the post till further orders if he had not relinquished the charge yet.

Published in Dawn, July 06th, 2018