Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf President Parvez Elahi challenges rejection of nomination papers in apex court

Islamabad [Pakistan], January 25 (ANI): Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Parvez Elahi appoached the Supreme Court after the rejection of his election nomination papers by the Lahore High Court earlier this month, as reported by Dawn.

Elahi, 77 took his legal battle to the apex court on Wednesday.

Barrister Haris Azmat represents PTI President Elahi, who seeks to overturn the LHC’s January 13 ruling that upheld the returning officers’ (ROs) decision to reject his candidature for the National Assembly constituency NA-64 (Gujrat III) and Punjab Assembly’s constituency PP-34 (Gujrat-VIII).

Elahi, who has served as the Punjab Chief Minister, filed his nomination for the February 8 general elections, according to Dawn.

However, his papers were rejected by the returning officers, a decision later affirmed by both the election tribunal and the Lahore High Court.

Elahi, in his appeals, contended that one of the grounds for the rejection of nomination papers was that he did not provide an exclusive bank account and gave the same account to another constituency.

In his defence, he argues that the legislative amendments under the Elections (Second Amendment) Act of 2023 permit candidates to use an existing bank account for multiple constituencies, a factor allegedly overlooked by the tribunal and the high court.

However, both forums failed to consider Sections 132 and 133 of the Act, following which Elahi argued that it was categorically mentioned in Section 132(4) that a candidate has to provide bills, receipts, etc., of the election expenses, which can easily be verified from his bank account, Dawn reported.

There is no restriction on using an existing account for any other expenses, and the said amounts cannot be reconciled.

He further stated that he was in jail and both forums, while deciding his plea against the rejection of the nomination papers, did not consider these circumstances.

Moreover, another issue on which Elahi was disqualified was the concealment of his shareholding in Lahore Modern Flour Mills (Private) Limited, despite the fact that the flour mills were incorporated in 2008 but remained non-functional, so much so that a national tax number was not even issued in its name.

Referring to the allegation of nondisclosure of seven licenced weapons, Elahi’s team argued that the nomination papers did not specifically require such disclosure under the law, Dawn reported.