Daily Times

A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench, headed by Justice Jawad Hassan, Tuesday dismissed PTI candidate Jamshed Iqbal Cheema’s plea requesting the court to allow him to contest the NA-133 by-election.

The returning officer (RO) had earlier rejected the nomination papers of Cheema and his covering candidate Musarrat Jamshed Cheema after they failing to prove that the proposers of their nomination papers belonged to NA-133. As per the election laws, the proposer must be a resident of the same constituency from where the candidate is contesting the election.

Cheema later challenged the RO’s order in the Election Appellate Tribunal but could not establish his case as a result of which the Appellate Tribunal upheld the RO’s order and rejected his appeal, says a media report. After that, Cheema filed a writ petition with the LHC seeking direction to set aside the order of the RO as well as the order of the Election Appellate Tribunal.

In the petition, he further prayed to the LHC that the election schedule of the by-election, issued by ECP, also be set aside. “Direction be passed to the quarter concerned to announce a fresh election program only after correction/rectification of the record of ECP especially relating to the misplaced census circles and restoration thereof at their relevant Census circles,” Cheema had further implored in his petition.