PESHAWAR, June 19: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday dismissed a writ petition challenging an order of the Chief Election Commissioner in a poll dispute of a union council.

The petition filed by Arbab Aamir Ayub was referred to Justice Ijazul Hassan after a two-member bench had given dissenting judgments in December. The bench comprised Justice Khalida Rachied and Justice Qaim Jan Khan.

Justice Hassan concurred with the judgment of Justice Rachied and ruled that the declaration of Usman Alam Jhagra, one of the respondents, by the CEC as Nazim of Meera Kachori Union Council was not illegal.

The case involves scions of two influential political families of the city. Usman Alam Jhagra is nephew of ARD secretary-general Iqbal Jhagra and Arbab Aamir is brother of former ANP MNA Arbab Zahir. The case has been pending before the high court since the fourth phase of local government elections were held on July 2.

Advocate Qazi Mohammad Anwer represented the petitioner whereas Lateef Afridi appeared for the respondent, Usman Alam Jhagra.

The petitioner claimed that initially the returning officer had declared Mr Jhagra as winner by a margin of nine votes. However, he added, on an application of the petitioner a recount took place during which Mr Aamir was declared successful by excluding nearly 300 votes of a polling station which did not carry signatures of the presiding officer.

He stated that the respondent, Mr Jhagra, approached the CEC who on July 17 set aside the returning officer’s order and again declared Mr Jhagra as Nazim.

Mr Anwer contended that under section 71 of the NWFP Local Government Election Rules an election dispute could only be challenged through a petition before an election tribunal, and the CEC was not empowered to resolve such a dispute once the results were consolidated by the district returning officer and returning officer.

Mr Afridi contended that if the presiding officer forgot to put his signatures on the ballot papers, the respondent could not be penalized for the fault of the officer.