LAHORE, May 20: The Lahore High Court registrar office on Thursday returned Punjab Assembly opposition leader Qasim Zia's petition against the election of Gen Pervez Musharraf as president, raising an objection that it was not fit for hearing.

Two more objections were raised by the office, according to one of which, the petitioner had not attached a certified copy of the notification through which the Election Commission of Pakistan had declared Gen Musharraf as having been elected after securing the vote of confidence from the National Assembly and provincial assemblies.

Another objection was that the petition did not accompany a certified copy of the result of the presidential election as notified for the provincial assemblies.

Mr Zia's petition, filed in the Lahore High Court on May 6, was reported by the court office last week as having gone missing. His counsel Dr Babar Awan told Dawn by telephone that his office in Islamabad was informed this morning that the petition was located, but not maintainable for the high court review. He said he would submit the petition again after removing the objections.

As for the question that the petition was not fit for a review by the LHC, the counsel said it was certainly maintainable because the issue of Gen Musharraf's election and the vote of confidence had earlier been examined in the petitions filed by PML-N leader Syed Zafar Ali Shah and MMA acting president Qazi Husain Ahmad.

He said the objection raised by the LHC office on the question of maintainability of the petition amounted to a judicial decision, which was the sole prerogative of the superior courts.

The writ petition requested the court that the vote of confidence secured by the president be declared illegal and the office of the president vacant. It took a position that Gen Musharraf failed to poll required number of votes from the Punjab, the NWFP and the Balochistan provincial assemblies and, thus, did not qualify to represent as the head of state.

The petitioner submitted that the CEC, also held as respondent along with the Punjab Assembly speaker and returning and presiding officers appointed for securing a vote of confidence on Jan 1, 2004, converted the result of the electoral exercise for the vote into election results in an unconstitutional manner.

He also submitted that rules for the vote of confidence were communicated to the presiding officers of the NWFP Assembly later than the resolution for a vote. Neither such resolution was ever sent to the presiding officer of the Punjab Assembly nor a division of the electorate (MPAs) was sought.

Also mentioned in the petition was that the presiding officers were appointed from among judges of the superior courts whereas the law provided that a member of the provincial assembly concerned should be in the chair for such an electoral exercise.