LAHORE, April 20: Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Syed Zahid Husain dismissed on Friday a petition that challenges the victory of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in bye-election from NA-59, Attock-III.
Engineer Jamil Ahmad Malik moved the court seeking the election be declared void under section 52 of the Representation of the People Act of 1976.
The petitioner alleged Mr Aziz was not a Pakistani national, understated his assets and spent more money in his campaign than the amount prescribed by the election commissioner besides using state machinery to win the election.
The court rejected the plea on technical grounds, saying that except the affidavit of the petitioner, no other affidavit had been filed with the petition and not even of that person who had photographed and shot a video of the polling.
The court observed the petitioner had appended hundreds of press-clippings and photographs to the petition but no affidavit which was one of mandatory requirement of law. The judge said petition must be filed as contemplated and prescribed by law.
During the proceedings the defence counsel also pleaded that such defect and omission was serious because the petition took no responsibility for the allegations.
“In fact, the present one is a fit case where the petition should have been rejected at the threshold for non-compliance with the mandatory provisions of law as to pleading,” the defence counsel argued.
He maintained that the returned candidate having won the election should not be dragged in litigation and that his victory should be challenged only on firm footings by complying with all requirements of law.
The petitioner was one of contestants with seven others including Mr Aziz in the by election in Attock.
In the petition, Engineer Jamil said Mr Aziz was an American national and had been holding the office of finance minister when he contested the election and it was in sheer violation of the constitution, the petitioner added.
The petitioner contended that at the time of filing of the nomination papers, he had raised objection to Mr Aziz’s filing of the papers on plea that he was not a Pakistani national, but his plea was rejected despite the fact he had valid reasons to justify his point.