LAHORE, Feb 24: An election tribunal of the Lahore High Court directed MNA Hamid Nasir Chattha on Monday to file till Feb 26 reply to a petition seeking his disqualification.

PPP’s Aasma Abu Bakar, defeated candidate from NA-101 (Gujranwala), submitted that Hamid Nasir Chattha had utilized funds of District Nazim Fayyaz Chattha for his election campaign.

She said that the returning officer declared her winner after counting votes on Oct 10, 2002. Later, the Election Commission declared Hamid Nasir Chattha as winner.

She said that she approached the Chief Election Commissioner for re-counting. The CEC issued notification of the victory of Hamid Nasir Chattha.

She requested the tribunal to declare the election as illegal and direct the CEC to hold re-counting.

Bail plea dismissed: Special appellate bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed bail application of three accused of the Nizami Motors reference pending with the accountability court.

The NAB had arrested Nizami Motors proprietor Mohammad Ijaz in October last.

He is alleged to have misappropriated an amount of Rs40 million which the people had invested with him in the car-lending business. His father, Bulend Iqbal Latif, and brother Aftab who were involved in the so-called business, have also been named co-accused.

Some 15 victims of the fraud had complained to the NAB about their investments swindled by the accused.

The application filed by Robina Iqbal through Malik Saeed Hasan submitted that the matter was of civil nature and between two parties and the NAB had no jurisdiction to interfere.

He submitted that the accused were ready to pay the liabilities to the financiers and the petitioner also ready to deposit sufficient surety bonds against the bails of her husband and sons.

NAB counsel Shaukat Javed said the accused were involved in swindling a big amount of the poor financiers and the reference was pending with the accountability court. He said the accused had failed to comply with their promise to pay the profit to the financiers, on it they moved applications to the NAB for action and recovery of their money.

He said the act of the accused fell within the NAB Ordinance and their application should be rejected.

ADJOURNED: A full bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday adjourned for Tuesday hearing of the appeal against disqualification of PPP MPA Tanvir Ashraf Kaira from PP-112. Justice Raja Muhammad Sabir had earlier disqualified him as MPA on a petition filed by Chaudhry Riasat Ali, a rival candidate.—APP