PESHAWAR: An election tribunal here on Tuesday rejected a much publicised petition of former provincial minister and leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Taimur Jhagra, who had challenged declaration of his rival candidate of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Jalal Khan as an MPA in the Feb 2024 general elections.

The tribunal presided over by retired Justice Lal Jan Khattak rejected his plea on technical grounds, observing that the petition was having certain defects and was thus not maintainable in the light of the provisions of Elections Act, 2017.

The tribunal pronounced a short order whereas the detailed order will be released later.

Mr Jhagra had challenged the alleged tampering of election documents in his constituency, PK-79 Peshawar, by relevant election officers and declaration of his rival Jalal Khan as returned candidate.

Rules the petition not maintainable on technical grounds

The petitioner contended that after the closure of polling, polled votes were counted and duly-signed Form-45 (election results in a polling station) was issued to polling agents of the petitioner and other candidates.

He said that the Form-45 vote counts clearly laid down the petitioner to have received 25,114 votes with the runner-up candidate Attaul Haq of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl having secured 5,188 votes and Jalal Khan (the present MPA) standing fifth on the list securing 1,619 votes.

He stated that the petitioner had compiled his result in tabular form on the basis of the Form-45, received from presiding officers by his polling agents. He claimed that in the morning, a bogus and manufactured Form-47 was issued declaring that Jalal Khan, who was at fifth number, won the polls by getting 16,031 votes whereas his (petitioner) votes were mentioned as 11,495.

He said that the manipulated Form-47 was officially not handed over to him and he came to know about it from the website of Election Commission of Pakistan.

Barrister Yaseen Raza Khan appeared for respondent Jalal Khan and argued that the petition was not maintainable as it had many defects. He contended that the petition had to be submitted in accordance with the provisions of Elections Act, 2017, and should carry correct details of the petitioner.

He said that if a single requirement, mentioned in sections 142, 143 and 144 of Elections Act, were missing, the petition would be then not-maintainable. He stated that the petition had several glaring mistakes and in the affidavit submitted along with the petition the parentage of petitioner was mentioned wrong.

He requested the tribunal to reject the petition without conducting further proceedings in it.

“Election petitions are meant to be decided in a maximum of 180 days. Exactly 699 days after the February 8th 2024 election, retired Judge Lal Jan Khattak has done his job, and without proceeding to arguments, has declared my election petition for PK-79 non-maintainable on the basis of ‘defects’ in the petition,” Mr Jhagra posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account after the order was pronounced.

He stated: “Ironically, the defects in the tampered official Forms-45, all with overwriting and tampering, enabling 1,608 votes to be greater than 25,000, are to count for nothing.” He announced that the case would now proceed in Supreme Court

“This battle must continue. I decided some months ago that regardless of the outcome, the issue of the mandate must be highlighted again and again. And this is why the call for February 8 is important,” he stated.

“There is no easy way. Democracy will be reclaimed in Pakistan. It will be reclaimed because we stand up for it,” he said.

It merits a mention that over an application of Mr Jhagra, Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) had also initiated an inquiry into the matter and summoned several presiding officers of polling stations in PK-79 constituency.

However, Peshawar High Court had declared the act of ACE unconstitutional and illegal, ruling that it lacked lawful authority to assume jurisdiction over acts allegedly committed by election officials performing duties under supervision of ECP in general elections.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2026