PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur on Monday petitioned the Peshawar High Court against a notice by the Election Commission of Pakistan in a case about his assets.

He filed the petition through lawyers Syed Sikandar Shah, Alam Khan, Safia Noreen and Samiullah.

The ECP put the CM on notice in the assets case on April 28 after taking a suo motu notice of the matter.

In the petition, Mr Gandapur prayed the court to declare the ECP’s proceedings about his “assets for the year 2023 in connection with the 2024 general elections” illegal, void ab initio, unconstitutional, and devoid of any provision of the Elections Act, 2017.

He added that he contested the Feb 8 election in the PK-113 constituency and was declared a returned candidate before being elected by the assembly as the chief minister of the province.

In the petition, the chief minister said that before the election, he furnished all details of his assets, which were microscopically scrutinised by the election watchdog through its nominated returning officer.

“Now that the elections are over, the ECP has reopened the issue of the statement of assets and liabilities, which is based on mala fide intent and tainted with political malice, and has no legal backing,” he said.

Mr Gandapur contended that the ECP, by issuing a notice to him on April 28, 2024, showed that it wanted to “continuously hang the sword of Damocles over his head just to pressure and harass” him—an act against its mandate.

He added that the function of the Election Commission of Pakistan was the facilitation of elections and not harassment of candidates, but its recent judgement was against a particular political party, showing the respondents in the case were bent to create hurdles and difficulties even after the elections.

In the petition, the chief minister said that as the general elections were over and the ECP had notified the returned candidates in the official gazette under Section 98 of the Elections Act 2017, the ECP had become “functus afficio” to exercise its powers under that law, which only dealt with the matters of election.

He added that the ECP’s suo motu cognisance of election matters was illegal, unwarranted, and against the provisions of the Elections Act, 2017.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2024