KARACHI, Sept 21: A full bench of the Sindh High Court, hearing petitions challenging decisions on appeals by the election tribunals, on Saturday allowed Nisar Khuhro, Sindh PPP chief, to contest the Oct 10 elections.

Mr Nisar Khuhro had filed an appeal against rejection of his nomination papers on account of loan default, which was allowed by the bench.

The full bench, comprising Justice Ghulam Rabbani, Justice Anwer Zaheer Jamali and Justice S. Ali Aslam Jafri, also held that the former speaker, Nabil Gabol of PPP and Abubakr Shaikhani of the PML(Q) are allowed to contest the elections.

Counsel for Nabil Gabol, Khawaja Naveed, advocate, had contended that both the returning officers and the election tribunal had rejected the objections raised by the petitioner. He questioned the maintainability of the petition.

The bench, taking two other identical petitions, asked the counsel for petitioners to satisfy the court on the ground of maintainability. Finally, it was dismissed on this ground. This bench, in fact, allowed three constitutional petitions while five petitions were dismissed.

The bench, however, dismissed the petitions filed by Sardar Shabbir Ahmed Chandio and Maulana Abdullah Pahore challenging the rejection of their nomination papers. Another petition filed by Zafarullah Domki against former Sindh minister Saleem Jan Mazari was also dismissed.

Another full bench, comprising Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Musheer Alam, allowed an appeal filed by Shabbir Mehar.

Orders, however, remained in three appeals filed by Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi, Syed Iqbal Hussain Shah and M. Arif Khan Arif.