Election Case Against Nawaz Sharif

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Election Case Against Nawaz Sharif

Posted by admin in News, Politics on 05 29th, 2008 | one response

AN election tribunal of the Lahore High Court while hearing a fresh petition as an objection case against the acceptance of nomination papers of PML-N Chief Mian Nawaz Sharif from NA-123, Lahore, issued conditional notices to respondents.

The petition filed by Noor Elahi, an independent candidate from the same constituency, was earlier not entertained by the registrar office as the final date for filing appeals against the decisions of the returning officers had lapsed.

Later, on the request of the petitioner, the case was fixed before the tribunal of Justice Akram Qureshi and Justice Hafiz Tariq Nasim that overruled the office’s objection.

While issuing notices to Mian Nawaz Sharif and other respondents, the tribunal observed that the notices were being issued subject to all legal implications. First, the maintainability of the petition will be decided then the tribunal would proceed on the objections raised by the petitioner.

The tribunal has also directed the advocate general of Punjab and the deputy attorney general of Pakistan to assist the court on the issue on May 30, the next date of hearing.

Noor in his petition submitted that Sharif could not contest election because an anti-terrorism court, had awarded him life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 500,000 on him. He said that his conviction as well as the sentence was upheld by an appellate court in a special criminal appeal. He said Nawaz was also convicted by an accountability court, Attock Fort, in a reference decided on July 2007 and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 14 years and fined Rs 20 million.

The appellant said the accountability court had also declared Nawaz disqualified for 21 years from seeking or being elected, chosen, appointed as member or representative of any public office or any authority of the local government of Pakistan.

The appellant said in both the cases, Nawaz was convicted by competent courts and the convictions were still intact because these were not set aside by any court to date. He said that it was a settled law that only sentence awarding punishment was pardoned, reprieved, remitted, suspended or commuted but the conviction remained intact. He also alleged that Nawaz had publicly propagated his biased opinion and acted prejudicial to the integrity of the judiciary. He said he also defamed and ridiculed the armed forces.

The appellant said Sharif was also a defaulter of consortium of banks namely the National Bank of Pakistan, the Habib Bank Ltd, the United Bank Ltd, the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan, the Muslim Commercial Bank, the PICIC Bank of Punjab and the first Punjab Mudarba. Assailing the candidature of Nawaz, the appellant submitted that he ditched the court by claiming that he was qualified to contest the election in line with Article 62 of the constitution.