ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The Supreme Court on Monday suspended the election of nazim in Lehri Union Council of Sohawa tehsil and adjourned the matter for October 2. A three-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice M Javed Buttar and Justice Syed Jamshed Ali, was hearing the petition of a PML-N candidate Shahid Aziz, who despite winning the local government election for the seat of nazim in Lehri Union Council was declared unsuccessful.

Shahid Aziz was declared successful by the returning officer on August 26 after he bagged 28,008 votes.

However, his opponent, Mr Yasir, from the ruling party filed an application with the Election Commission for recounting of votes, which was accepted and recounting was held in which he was declared successful for securing 27,070 votes while reducing the vote of Shahid Aziz to 26,069 votes.

On the basis of recounting, a fresh notification was issued by the election commission declaring Mr Yasir the successful candidate.

Shahid Aziz moved the Supreme Court that suspended the elections in Lehri.

Meanwhile, the same bench also transferred the case of Islamabad Cooperative Housing Society to the Lahore High Court with a direction to re-hear the matter by hearing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

By converting the NAB petition into an appeal, the Supreme Court directed the high court to hear the NAB in detail in the case which should not be fixed before the judge who had heard it earlier.

During the hearing, counsel for NAB Raja Muhammad Ibrahim Satti argued that one of the accused property dealers Chaudhry Arshad took over Islamabad Cooperative Housing Society (ICHS) in 1997 with the connivance of Muhammad Din, Assistant Registrar Cooperatives of the Islamabad Capital Territory.

According to the record, the registrar also had a share in the society through his wife and brother-in-law, who acted as partners in the society. The accused earned million of rupees by inviting applications and seed money from the applicants after they launched the housing society on Fateh Jang Road.

Consequently, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered an alleged fraud case against the property dealer, registrar and his relatives and later seized the bank accounts of the property dealer and the registrar worth over Rs320 million and Rs30 million respectively.