ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani took up on Thursday Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan's plea challenging the dismissal of his nomination papers from the capital's NA-53 constituency.
On Tuesday, the NA-53 returning officer (RO) had rejected Imran's nomination papers along with those of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former federal minister and governor Mehtab Abbasi and estranged PTI leader Ayesha Gulalai for failing to properly fill out the affidavit attached with the nomination papers.
As Justice Kayani took up Imran's plea, the PTI chief's counsel Babar Awan informed the court that Imran heads Pakistan’s largest political party and is waging a struggle for the basic rights of people.
His nomination papers were scrutinised on June 19 and were rejected on weak grounds, the counsel added.
Awan claimed the petitioner neither concealed the facts nor misstated anything in the nomination papers and termed the RO’s decision unjust.
He pleaded the judge to dismiss the RO’s decision and order the acceptance of Imran's nomination papers.
The hearing was then adjourned until tomorrow, with court directions to the RO to appear in person along with the relevant record.
On Tuesday, which was the last day of the Election Commission of Pakistan's scrutiny of nomination papers, the PTI chief's candidacy was also rejected from NA-95 (Mianwali).
However, Imran's nomination papers were accepted from NA-35 (Bannu), NA-131 (Lahore) and NA-243 (Karachi).
Appeals against decisions of the ROs can be filed in the relevant appellate tribunals by June 22.
The decisions on all the appeals will be made by June 27, after which the revised list of the candidates will be shared on June 28.
The last date for withdrawal of candidature will be June 29.
Moreover, the date for allocation of electoral symbols and publication of the final list of contesting candidates will be June 30.
Polling for general election 2018 will be held on July 25.
APP/AFP