ISLAMABAD   -   The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday sought arguments over the maintainability of a petition seeking former prime minister Imran Khan’s disqualification as a lawmaker for ‘concealing’ his alleged daughter Tyrian White in his nomination papers.

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq issued the directions while heading a larger bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Arbab Mohammad Tahir to hear a petition, seeking disqualification of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief for concealing his alleged daughter in the nomination papers, submit­ted to contest the 2018 general elections. In this mater, petitioner Sajid Mahmood approached the IHC claiming that although Imran made arrangements for Tyrian White’s upkeep abroad, he did not disclose it in nomination papers and affida­vits filed by him for elections. At the outset of hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer sought permission to sub­mit new documents pertaining to the case in court i.e. the notification regarding Imran Khan’s victory on seven National Assembly seats re­cently issued by the ECP. The bench accepted the request and directed the counsel to provide a copy of the new documents to Imran’s lawyers. Salman Akram Raja, counsel for the PTI chairman sought time from the court for the submission of docu­ments. He prayed to the court to hear arguments in support of main­tainability of the petition on the next hearing. The petitioner’s lawyer argued that even now when the for­mer prime minister Imran Khan was not an MNA, the petition against him was still maintainable. The ECP’s lawyer maintained if the petitioner challenged the commission’s notifi­cation [on Imran’s victory on seven NA seats], then the electoral body would submit a response The court remarked that arguments on admis­sibility of plea were very important.

It directed the ECP to submit veri­fied documents on Imran’s victory and asked the PTI chief’s lawyer to present his response in court at the next hearing. Later, the bench de­ferred the hearing till March 1 for further proceedings. In this matter, the petitioner is seeking disqualifi­cation of the PTI chief, an MNA from the NA-95 Mianwali-I constituency, contending that Imran had wrongly mentioned only two children Qa­sim Khan and Sulaiman Khan in his nomination papers for contesting the elections and omitted the third one. He claimed Imran Khan had deliberately and wilfully failed to declare his daughter Tyrian White in the relevant columns of the nomi­nation papers and the affidavit ap­pended therewith, hence he is not sagacious, righteous, honest and a man of good character in terms of Article 62 of the Constitution.