Peshawar: The High Court issued an injunction against the by-elections to three seats of the National Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on April 30, halted the conduct of the elections and issued a notice to the Election Commission seeking its response.
The case was heard by a two-member bench comprising Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice SM Atiq Shah of Peshawar High Court. Barrister Gauhar Khan followed the case on behalf of the petitioners former Member of National Assembly Ali Muhammad Khan, Shaukat Ali and Fazal Muhammad, while the Election Commission was represented by Mohsin Kamran Siddique and the federal government was represented by Ashfaq Daudzai.
During the hearing of the case, Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim remarked that why is the Election Commission taking so much interest in the by-elections? The Election Commission wants to conduct by-elections but is not conducting general elections.
Justice SM Atiq Shah said that there is a problem of security and finance for the general election of the province but not for the by-election.
Barrister Gauhar Khan, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that PTI members had resigned against the regime change and these resignations were accepted on July 28, 2022. The Election Commission regularly held the election in this regard, in which Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan won from these constituencies, but later he left 6 out of 7 seats, while the Election Commission held these three constituencies for re-election. The date of April 30 has been fixed.
According to Barrister Gauhar Khan, under the law and according to the constitution, the elections to these constituencies cannot be held 120 days before the general election of the National Assembly, as that time starts from April 14. There is a total gap of 120 days between April 14 and August 14, while the elections will be held on April 30, which is in complete violation of Article 124 of the Constitution.
He told the court that the elections that are being conducted will be a waste of money, along with this, deviation from the constitution is also being done in this regard.
According to PTI’s lawyer, the government has deliberately given this date and in this context the election cannot be held constitutionally, if they really wanted to hold the election, it should have been held before April 30, but it was not. was done and the date of April 30 was given, which is likely to raise many constitutional issues.
The lawyer of the Election Commission told the court that the constitutional provision requested to stop the elections is not correct because these seats were declared vacant 4 months ago and the petitioner is not the affected party either. Members of the Assembly.
After the arguments were completed, the court stopped the holding of elections on these three constituencies on April 30 and issued notices to the Election Commission of Pakistan and other concerned authorities.
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