PESHAWAR, Oct 17: The Peshawar High Court on Monday admitted for full hearing a writ petition filed by provincial secretary general of People’s Party Parliamentarian, Najmuddin Khan, challenging the election of district Upper Dir nazim.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Ijazul Hassan and Justice Saleem Khan also issued notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan and the newly elected district nazim, Sahibzada Tariqullah, who won the election from the petitioner with a razor-thin margin of four votes.

The bench, however, declined to restrain Tariqullah from taking oath of his office, as Oct 17 was fixed for that purpose. The bench observed that the nazim might have taken oath and it would be no use issuing a restraining order to him.

Mr Najmuddin has challenged four votes cast in favour of Mr Tariqullah on the ground that those voters possessed sanads of seminaries and thus they were not entitled to cast votes in the light of the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in that regard.

Advocate Abdul Lateef Afridi appeared for the petitioner and contended that the four voters, including two union council nazims and two naib nazims, possessed sanad of Shahadatul Sanvia Ama.

He added that if the four votes in question were excluded from the tally of the respondent Tariqullah then it would be a tie between the two contenders.

Mr Afridi stated that the electoral ward for election of district nazim was all the elected nazims, naib nazims and councillors. He added that at the time of polling the petitioner had pointed out that the said four voters were not entitled to vote and the presiding officer had separated their votes and sealed them in an envelope.

However, he added, the presiding officer counted the four votes in favour of Mr Tariqullah after the polls.

Mr Afridi argued that on Sept 16 the Supreme Court of Pakistan had pronounced that candidates possessing sanads of seminaries would only be qualified to contest polls if they had cleared additional subjects of English, Urdu and Pakistan Studies.

He added that the four voters in question did not qualify the guidelines provided by the apex court.

He also requested the court to restrain Mr Tariqullah from taking oath as the petitioner would face irreparable loss in that case.