Daily Times

LAHORE: An appellate tribunal of the Lahore High Court on Saturday allowed former finance minister Ishaq Dar to contest the upcoming Senate elections.

Dar had filed nomination papers for a technocrat seat in the Senate from the platform of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) for the elections, scheduled for March 3. However, the nomination papers were rejected by the returning officer after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) submitted court documents stating that Dar was an absconder in a corruption reference under way in the Islamabad accountability court. The returning officer had then ruled that Dar was not ‘honest’ and ‘truthful’ as per the constitution.

Subsequently, Dar’s counsel Salman Butt filed an appeal at the Lahore High Court’s appellate tribunal stating that the returning officer rejected the papers of former finance minister even though all the legal requirements were fulfilled.

On Saturday, the tribunal accepted the request, allowing Dar to contest the elections.

Separately, the LHC on Saturday rejected a PTI petition challenging the nomination papers of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s sister Sadia Abbasi for the upcoming Senate polls.

It may be noted that PTI leader Andleeb Abbas had challenged the returning officer’s decision to accept Sadia Abbasi’s nomination for the Senate on a seat reserved for women.

Abbasi’s lawyer argued that the petitioner did not raise objections on his client’s nomination papers before the returning officer during their scrutiny.

He stated the petition was not maintainable and requested the court to dismiss it. In the petition, the PTI leader argued that the premier’s sister had concealed details of her assets in the nomination papers. Besides, she also possessed the nationality of more than one country, therefore she was not eligible to be a senator, the petitioner argued.

Meanwhile, the bench also dismissed another petition filed by the PTI leader through which she challenged the acceptance of PML-N candidate Nuzhat Sadiq’s nomination papers for the Senate polls. Andleeb Abbas challenged Sadiq’s nomination, arguing that she had not placed on record any proof to show that she had surrendered her dual nationality. The PML-N candidates – Sadia Abbasi and Nuzhat Sadiq – had filed nomination papers for the Senate seat reserved for women from Punjab, which were accepted by the ECP’s returning officer after their scrutiny.

Published in Daily Times, February 18^th 2018.