PESHAWAR, June 2: The election tribunal on Monday disqualified an MPA, Attiqur Rehman, declaring his seat vacant in the NWFP Assembly.

The tribunal comprising of Justice Khalida Rachied of the Peshawar High Court accepted an election petition filed by rival candidate Khan Afzal of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, stating that Mr Rehman was not 25 years old at the time of filing his nomination papers and therefore was not qualified to contest elections on PF-42 (Hangu-I) constituency.

The tribunal, however, did not accept the petitioner’s plea for declaring him elected as an MPA on the seat vacated by Attiqur Rehman and asked the Election Commission of Pakistan to fill the vacant seat by holding by-elections.

Mr Rehman, who is the son of the former provincial minister, Ghaniur Rehman, contested last year’s general elections as Awami National Party’s candidate. However, he was expelled from the ANP on charges of violating party discipline by selling his vote to a contesting candidate during the senate elections. Mr Rehman can now file an appeal against the judgment of the election tribunal before the Supreme Court. The tribunal had reserved its order after the completion of arguments by both the parties on May 12 and pronounced its order on Monday.

Advocate Essa Khan had appeared for the petitioner and argued that Mr Rehman was 22 years old at the time of filing nomination papers and did not qualify for the elections. He claimed Mr Rehman had filed a suit before the court of a local civil judge for contesting the polls, following which a decree was issued in his favour.

Advocate Essa Khan argued that there were various discrepancies in the order of the civil judge. The order was issued on Sep 2, 2002, whereas in one of the documents Mr Rehman had dated the issuance of the decree in the month of August. He added that the civil court had overlooked various important points before issuing the decree in his favour.