ISLAMABAD   -   The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Monday rejected Chairman Pa­kistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan’s re­quest to suspend the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to disqualify him in the Toshakhana (gift de­pository) case.

However, the court observed that Imran had not been barred from contesting in fu­ture elections follow­ing the ECP verdict in the Toshakhana refer­ence against him. The court added that the former premier would not face any problems to contest in the NA-45 (Kurram-I) by-election scheduled to be held on October 30.

A single bench of IHC comprising Chief Jus­tice of IHC Justice Athar Minallah conducted hearing of the petition moved by the for­mer prime minister through his lawyer Barrister Ali Zafar challenging the ECP’s decision to disqualify him. In his peti­tion, he cited the Secretary ECP, Speaker National Assembly and others as respondents.

Rejecting his request to sus­pend the ECP’s decision, the IHC bench maintained the Registrar Office’s objection over his peti­tion and directed him to first at­tach the verified copy of the ver­dict within three days.

The registrar office had de­clared the petition as incom­plete and raised several objec­tions against it including lack of biometric verification and miss­ing of a verified copy of the ver­dict of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the Toshakha­na case. During the hearing, the IHC Chief Justice asked that why the petitioner was in so haste in this case at the time when he was not attending the Parlia­ment’s sessions. He made the observation that how it could suspend a decision of ECP when the verified copy of the verdict was not before it.

Justice Athar further re­marked that a proceeding of ECP was conducted under the Constitution and Imran Khan could contest the elections as there was no restriction on him. The court noted that the deci­sion attached in the petition had no signature of the concerned authority.

Imran Khan’s counsel Barris­ter Ali Zafar argued that the ECP had not issued a detailed order so far and that they had down­loaded the two-page decision from the website of the elector­al body. He said that the ECP had disqualified his client and also sent this matter for further trial.

The counsel said that the deci­sion had been discussed on me­dia and the ECP had not issued any objection against it. He re­quested the court to seek the decision’s copy from the ECP. Ali Zafar said that an application had also been moved to the re­turning officer to stop his client from contesting the elections.

Justice Athar said that wait for the [written] verdict. Then, the counsel informed the court that the ECP had also directed to ini­tiate legal proceedings against Imran. At this, the judge replied that the sessions court would hear that matter.

Later, the court directed the PTI counsel to remove the ob­jections on the petition with­in three days and deferred the proceedings.

The petitioner stated in the petition that he filed his State­ment of Assets and Liabilities for 2018, 2019 till 2021 in De­cember 2018, 2019 till Decem­ber 2021 and all assets or pro­ceeds of sale thereof in shape of money as the case had been, as were available on 30th June of each year had always been de­clared by the petitioner before the ECP. The PTI Chairman con­tended that if ECP had any ob­jection to any of the Statement of Assets and Liabilities filed by the Petitioner or wanted any clarifications or additional de­tails, under section 137 (4) ibid ECP could do so in 120 days and the ECP never raised any query or objection etc as required by Section 137(4) within 120 days.

He further contended that however the Speaker National Assembly without hearing the petitioner, and (without) any evidence or document and con­trary to the Constitution and the law, in a mechanical manner, on 05-08-2022, filed a Reference containing.

Imran adopted that all alle­gations or questions were and continue to be vehemently false and baseless and the bur­den to prove any concealment of course was on the movers of the Reference and the Speak­er. However as above stated, the Speaker acted unlawfully. Therefore, the petitioner filed his reply in detail on 06-09-2022 before the CP which may be read an integral part of this petition. Imran argued that the impugned order of the ECP is arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, based on no evidence, contrary to record and ultra vires the ju­risdiction of the ECP; hence ille­gal and null and void.

Therefore, he prayed to the court to declare, find and hold that the impugned order dated 21-10-2022 is against the set­tled principles of law on Article 63 of the Constitution, miscon­ceived and set it aside.

Meanwhile, the election tri­bunal yesterday allowed PTI Chairman Imran Khan to con­test in a by-election declaring his nomination paper valid for NA-45 [Kurram].

The PTI’s Chief was de-seat­ed from his NA-95 [Mianwali] in the light of the decision on the Tosha Khana case.

The by-election on NA-45 is scheduled to take place by the end of this month.

The election tribunal, in its hearing in an appeal against the approval of the former prime minister’s nomination papers for the constituency, allowed him to take part in the elections. The petitioner’s lawyer argued that Imran Khan is already a member of the National Assem­bly and has not given any rea­son to contest the election from another constituency.

It may be noted here that the PTI Chairman with 124 PTI MNAs has submitted resigna­tions to the National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. The lawyer of the commission, in the counter argument, re­marked that there was no ban on contesting elections from more than one constituency.