KARACHI, Dec 5: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s parliamentary party leader in the Sindh Assembly against the election of Deputy Speaker Rahila Tiwana.

It was maintained in the petition that MPA Abdul Rehman Rajput was the joint candidate of MMA and PPP for the slot of deputy speaker and he was the only candidate who had filed his nomination papers till the closing time on December 13, 2002. However, on the intervention of the Sindh governor, the time was extended by two-and-a-half hours to facilitate filing of nomination papers by Ms Rahila Tiwana, S. A. Iqbal Qadri and Mohammad Usman.

The petitioner had cited the assembly’s Rules of Procedure under which only the presiding officer, in his capacity as Returning Officer for the election of speaker and deputy speaker, had the powers to allow any extension in the time for the filing of nomination papers and that, too, within the office hours.

The court was prayed that governor’s order for the extension in time, therefore, be set aside and the petitioner be declared the deputy speaker elected unopposed.

The SHC’s division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Faisal Arab, dismissed the petition as no one on behalf of the petitioner appeared before it on Tuesday. The court observed that the petitioner was no more interested in the hearing of his petition.

Meanwhile, the same bench admitted a petition for hearing and issued notices to Education Secretary and the Sindh Public Service Commission. The petition was filed by 49 candidates for the posts of lecturers who prayed that despite being recommended by the SPSC in June this year, they had not been appointed so far. A date for the hearing will be fixed by the office. —PPI