PESHAWAR: A lawyer has moved the Peshawar High Court seeking orders for the Election Commission of Pakistan to remove ‘N’ from the name of the PML-N after the conviction of party supremo Nawaz Sharif for corruption.

Khanzada Ajmal Zeb filed the petition saying ‘N’ in the PML-N stands for Nawaz Sharif and since the former premier was convicted in a corruption case, the court should ask the ECP to delete ‘N’ from the PML-N.

The respondents in the petition are the chief election commissioner, ECP secretary and Nawaz Sharif.

The petitioner said Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was the head of the Muslim League, who wanted the party to be a symbol of good governance, development and national interest.

He said Nawaz Sharif was responsible for the division of the PML as he had hijacked the party before forming own faction, PML-N and registering it with the ECP.

The petitioner said the former premier was recently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by an accountability court for corruption.

He said the Supreme Court had disqualified Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office for life declaring he didn’t qualify the conditions mentioned in Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

The petitioner said the former prime minister had been misleading the public at large by using the name of PML-N and therefore, ‘N’ needed to be deleted from the PML-N.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2018