KARACHI: The six election tribunals, established to decide appeals against the decision of returning officers in Sindh, have disposed of 347 appeals.

Three tribunals were setup at Sindh High Court’s principal seat (Karachi) to decide appeals for the areas falling within Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas divisions, two at SHC Sukkur bench for Sukkur and Shaheed Benazirabad divisions, and for Larkana division, one tribunal was established at the SHC Larkana circuit.

According to the statistics, the tribunals had allowed the appellants/candidates to run elections in 214 appeals and 133 election appeals, including those filed against the candidature of aspirants, were rejected.

The tribunals at the SHC Karachi disposed of 263 appeals and 161 of them were allowed. Tribunals at Sukkur disposed of 46 appeals out of which 22 were allowed and the alone tribunal at Larkana decided 38 election appeals and 29 of them were allowed.

The candidates as well as voters of the constituencies concerned had filed 347 elections appeals against the decisions of the returning officers (ROs) across the province and the tribunals decided the same by Jan 10.

The vice chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and other party leaders including Haleem Adil Sheikh, Syed Firdous Shamim Naqvi, Khurram Sher Zaman, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Arshad Vohra and Pakistan Peoples Party’s Mirza Ikhtiar Baig were among the prominent candidates who got relief against the decisions of ROs and allowed by the tribunals to run in polls.

However, the tribunals had rejected the appeals of the Grand Democratic Alliance leaders Dr Fehmida Mirza and her spouse Dr Zulfiqar Mirza and others against rejection of their nomination papers.

The tribunals had also turned down a number of appeals filed against the candidatures of aspirants including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Shehbaz Sharif, PTI’s Firdous Shamim Naqvi and PPP’s Sharjeel Memon and Saeed Ghani.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2024