LAHORE, Sept 6: A full bench of the Lahore High Court will adjudicate on Wednesday if re-polling or recounting of votes is admissible after the presiding officer had issued unofficial result of the vote count to candidates.
Comprising Justice Mian Hamid Farooq, Justice Muhammad Muzammil Khan and Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi, the special bench was constituted by the chief justice to hear six writ petitions to interpret the electoral laws and rules governing the local elections.
All the petitions contest the legal status of the order of the Election Commission of Pakistan, the district returning officer or the returning officer for re-polling or recounting after the balloting process was completed.
FORGED SIGNATURE: Justice Syed Jamshed Ali of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday summoned Lahore Museum former director Liaquat Ali Niazi on the charge of forging the signatures of a Punjab government officer to illegally appoint an office superintendent.
The court directed the former director to defend the allegation on Sept 12. The court also instructed Punjab Ministry for Information and Culture deputy secretary Shafqat Jalil, since transferred to the federal government, to state on the same day if he was present at the meeting of the standing committee and signed the attendance sheet on June 28, 2003.
The court direction came in the proceedings of a co-warranto writ petition, moved by Muhammad Shafique who alleged that the former director had appointed Muhammad Shafiq Bajwa the Lahore Museum’s office superintendent though he did not belong to the department and was appointed on absorption from another department in violation of the rules enacted in 1987.
His counsel, Advocate Bilal Bashir, presented in court a copy of the minutes of the meeting on June 28 two years ago contending that deputy secretary was not present there and his signatures were forged by Mr Niazi for the appointment of Shafique Bajwa who was not qualified otherwise to be appointed.
Quoting the rules, the counsel submitted that a standing committee, comprising the Lahore Museum director, the principal of the National College of Arts, the deputy secretary, a scholar, to be nominated by the director, and a deputy director of the department, was competent to approve appointments. As for the office superintendent, he had to be a graduate and also from the same department.
JUDGEMENT RESERVED: The high court on Tuesday reserved judgment on another co-warranto writ petition through which Dr Ayaz Ahmad had challenged the appointment of Dr Nasim as a professor at the University of Veterinary Sciences, Lahore.
Dr Ayaz contended in his petition that Dr Nasim was appointed because she was the sister of a highly-placed political person and not because she qualified to be appointed.