KARACHI, Aug 18: A three-member bench of Supreme Court dismissed here on Wednesday a petition seeking disqualification of the legislators of Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

The petitioner, Dr Imran Liaquat, sought leave to appeal a Sindh High Court division bench judgment of October 2, 2002, whereby his writ petition for ouster of the Muttahida candidates from the electoral arena was heard.

He alleged that the party and its nominees were against the ideology of Pakistan, raised parochial slogans and demanded a new constitution. They were also anti-Islam, anti-state and anti-army in their orientation and, accordingly, ineligible to contest the elections to the houses of national and provincial legislatures, the petitioner contended.

Opposing the grant of leave, Deputy Attorney-General Syed Zaki Mohammad and Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan submitted that neither the writ petition, nor the petition for leave to appeal was maintainable in law.

The original petition, which was rightly dismissed by the high court as misconceived, had become infructuous as the Muttahida candidates had since been elected and sworn in under the law and the Constitution.

The petitioner should have approached the Election Commission, which registered the party under the law and allowed its candidates to contest the polls in accordance with the provisions of the Representation of People Act. Objections could have been raised before the returning officers.

A sitting member could be disqualified only under Article 63 of the Constitution through a reference made by the speaker or chairman of the house concerned. In any case, there is no provision for wholesale disqualification of members of a party duly registered under the Political Parties Act, the law officers argued.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, and comprising Justices Jawed Iqbal and Abdul Hameed Dogar, dismissed the petition after detailed arguments and refused the petitioner leave to appeal.