PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday extended a stay order stopping the Election Commission of Pakistan from acting against Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur over two petitions for his disqualification.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal issued notice to the ECP and sought its response to two almost identical petitions filed by the chief minister against the ECP’s proceedings on pleas of Mohammad Junaid and Ziaullah for his disqualification.

Last month, the court stayed those proceedings.

The bench also disposed of an identical petition by Mr Gandapur declaring it infructuous.

Alam Khan Adenzai, lawyer for the chief minister, said his client had challenged the plea filed by his rival candidate, Kafeel Ahmad, before the ECP.

High court seeks ECP’s response to petitions of Gandapur

He said as the plea had been withdrawn by Mr Kafeel, the petition of Mr Gandapur had become infructuous leading to his decision about its withdrawal.

Initially, the ECP issued a notice to Mr Gandapur asking him to appear before it on March 26 over the petition of Mr Kafeel.

However, the high court suspended the notice.

Two petitions were later filed with the ECP by Mr Juanid and Mr Zia. They, too, were challenged by Mr Gandapur.

Lawyer Adenzai requested that the court declare that the ECP had no jurisdiction to hear the case. He said the petitions filed with the ECP were not maintainable.

The petitioners told the ECP that the chief minister had made a misstatement before the returning officer regarding some of his properties, and therefore, he was neither sadiq (truthful) nor amen (righteous), according to him.

The lawyer said Mr Gandapur was declared a returned candidate from PK-113 Dera Ismail Khan in the Feb 8 general elections, and a gazette notification was also issued by the ECP in this regard.

He said the petitioners before the ECP had sought his disqualification under the Constitution’s Articles 218(3) and 62(1)(F) and different provisions of the Elections Act, 2017.

The counsel contended that after the Feb 8 general elections were over and the gazette notification of the successful candidates was issued, the ECP couldn’t deal with the election-related matters, so the petitions of the respondents were ‘incompetent and not maintainable.

They argued that as Mr Gandapur had been elected chief minister, the ECP had overstepped its powers by entertaining the petition.

The lawyers said after the notification of election tribunals, the ECP couldn’t hear the matter.

REPLY SOUGHT: A high court bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah has sought a reply from the federal government to the petition of PTI leader and MNA Asif Khan against the placing of his name on the provisional national identification list (PNIL) by the Federal Investigation Agency.

It adjourned hearing into the petition to May 8, directing the government to inform the court on what grounds the petitioner’s name was placed in the PNIL.

The petitioner’s counsel, Syed Sikandar Hayat Shah, argued that his client was elected a member of the National Assembly from Peshawar and that he belonged to a respectable family.

The lawyer contended that the petitioner was a law-abiding citizen and couldn’t travel abroad as he came to know about his name in the PNIL.

He argued that there was no justification for the government to place the name of the petitioner on that list and deny him the constitutional right to free movement.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2024