PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday suspended a notice of Election Commission of Pakistan to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur for appearance in a case related to his assets.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmad issued notice to ECP and sought its response to a petition filed by Mr Gandapur, challenging issuance of notice to him on April 28, wherein he was asked to appear before the commission on April 30.

The bench fixed May 22 for next hearing of the plea wherein the chief minister requested for setting aside the notice issued to him after the commission had taken suo moto notice of the matter.

Mr Gandapur has prayed the court to declare 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 Elections Act, 2017.

Bench fixes May 22 for next hearing of CM’s plea

Advocates Syed Sikander Hayat Shah and Samiullah appeared for the petitioner and stated that Mr Gandapur contested the Feb 8 elections in PK-113 constituency and was declared a returned candidate before being elected by the assembly as the chief minister of the province.

They stated 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, 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,” said Sikander Hayat.

He argued that ECP, by issuing a notice to the petitioner on April 28, 2024, showed that it wanted to ‘continuously hang the sword of Damocles over his head just to pressure and harass’ him that was an act against its mandate.

He pointed out that ECP issued the impugned notice on the basis of statements of assets and liabilities submitted by Mr Gandapur in 2022-23, when he was member of National Assembly and a federal minister, and that of his statement of assets with his nomination papers in the 2024 general elections.

Mr Hayat said that ECP asked the chief minister to appear in person or through a counsel on April 30 failing which the matter would be decided in his absence on basis of available record.

He argued that the statements submitted in 2022-23 were now past and closed transactions and ECP had no powers to reopen the same. He contended that the act of ECP was illegal particularly when the gazette notification was already issued declaring the petitioner a returned candidate.

He said that section 9 of Elections Act conferred powers upon ECP to declare a poll void and once a poll was authenticated and name of the returned candidate was notified then provisions of the said section could not be enforced.

The counsel stated that the function of ECP was the facilitation of elections and not harassment of candidates, but its recent judgment was against a particular political party, showing the respondents in the case were bent to create hurdles and difficulties even after the elections.

Furthermore, he argued that lection tribunals were functional and in that scenario ECP had no power to entertain any election-related dispute.

It is pertinent to mention that the high court has already granted interim relief to chief minister in three of his other petitions and stopped ECP from acting on three petitions of rival candidates, seeking his disqualification.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2024