LAHORE, Nov 25: The Lahore High Court registrar office on Friday fixed before Justice Nasim Sikandar as an objection case a writ petition through which former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has challenged a decision by the local income tax commissioner of re-opening his case.

The court is first to decide on Nov 30 if the writ petition is maintainable because the registrar office has repeatedly been returning it to the former prime minister’s counsel, Advocate Tariq Aziz, saying it was not maintainable.

The income tax commissioner re-opened the case of amount payable by Mr Nawaz Sharif during 1997-98 and imposed a tax of about Rs4 million, which also included a huge penalty. The commissioner took the decision about two years back but withheld the order that was communicated to the family only in August this year.

Advocate Tariq Aziz filed the writ petition challenging the re-opening of the case in September. Since then the registrar office has been returning the petition with one objection or the other.

The counsel said he had told the office that it was court and not the office to decide if the petition was maintainable or not. He also cited the high court rules, which envisaged the returning of petitions only on technical grounds.

He also told the registrar office that it was raising one objection after another and this was illegal.