LAHORE - The Lahore High Court yesterday ruled that candidates of local bodies’ election can chose their proposers and seconders from the same wards in which the election are being held.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah passed the order. The bench allowed five and dismissed 74 identical petitions filed challenging two conflicting decisions of two different single benches.
The bench observed that rule 12 (2) of the LG election rules says that a proposer and seconder to be from the same constituency/ward and the rules say any voter of a constituency may propose or second the name of any duly qualified person to be a candidate for an election of a member or, as the case may be, the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of that constituency.
The bench observed that it is the statutory requirement that a voter must be from the same constituency from where the candidate is contesting elections. This is both, an expression of confidence in favour of a candidate to represent the constituency and also an affirmation, that the electoral constituency is being represented, it adds.
The rules say that as elections are being held in a Ward which is a delimited electoral area, to fill the seat of a General Member, a Ward is, therefore, a constituency and the proposer and the seconder must be from the same said ward/constituency for the nomination papers to meet the requirement of Rule 12(2).
The petitioners had filed the petitions and had raised a question by challenging the decisions of two benches that whether the proposer and secondor under rule 12(2) of the LG election Rules must be from the constituency from where the candidate has been nominated or having a proposer or a secondor in the nomination paper from another constituency is a defect of substantial nature and cannot be remedied by the returning officer at the time of scrutiny under the rules.
Four LHC judges confirmed: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik yesterday administered oath to four additional judges on their confirmation.
Justice Arshad Mahmood Tabassum, Justice Muhammad Tariq Abbasi, Justice Ch. Muhammad Masood Jahangir and Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan are among the four judges who have been confirmed.
The oath taking ceremony held at Judges’ Lounge of the LHC. Senior Pusine judge Sardar Tariq Mahmood, Chief Justice-designate, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and others judges were also present on the occasion. Senior law officers, lawyers, officers of the court and families of the judges also graced the occasion.
The four judges were appointed as additional judges of the LHC on Oct 29, 2013. They were given extension for one year in their probation period in 2014 and the judicial commission confirmed them this year. The remaining additional judges of the LHC will take oath today.