Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a notice to Prime Minister Imran Khan while hearing a seven-year-old petition by PML-N lawmaker Ayaz Sadiq, challenging the verdict of an election tribunal that had invalidated the latter’s election victory from Lahore’s NA-122 constituency in the 2013 general elections.
Sadiq had defeated Imran Khan in the 2013 general elections from NA-122 after which the PTI chief had challenged the results.
The Punjab election commission’s tribunal had on Aug 15, 2015, ordered re-polling in NA-122, declaring the 2013 election in the constituency null and void. However, in the re-election on the seat two month later, Sadiq won again, this time defeating PTI’s Aleem Khan.
At the hearing today, the apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial noted that the case was related to the 2013 elections, adding that the term of those polls had already ended.
To this, Sadiq’s lawyer said his client was fined unjustly.
The PML-N leader, who was also present in court, said he had been asked to pay for the expenses incurred in the inspection of National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) records and other documents related to the case.
Sadiq further said he was wrongly accused of rigging the election to secure his victory.
After hearing the arguments, the apex court issued notices to the Election Commission of Pakistan, Nadra and the prime minister and sought their responses.
NA-122 was among the four controversial constituencies — the other three being NA-110 (Sialkot), NA-125 (Lahore) and NA-154 (Lodhran) — where PTI had demanded for voters’ thumbprint verification to gauge the authenticity of the entire general elections, failing which the party held a months’ long anti-government protest in Islamabad in 2014.
Sadiq had in September 2015 approached the top court, challenging the tribunal’s verdict.
The petition filed by Sadiq with the top court against the tribunal’s verdict is pending since then.
