ISLAMABAD: The highest court provided significant comfort to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday by allowing five of its candidates—including the party’s imprisoned president, Parvez Elahi—to run in the upcoming elections on February 8.
In addition to Elahi, PTI candidates Umer Aslam, Major (retd) Tahir Sadiq, Sanam Javaid Khan, and Shukat Basra had their appeals against returning officers’ rulings to reject their nomination papers from various constituencies accepted by the Supreme Court on Friday.
Elahi has been granted permission to run in the general election from Gujarat district’s PP-32 seat.
In an attempt to appeal the outcome of the Lahore High Court (LHC), which upheld the Election Tribunal’s decision to reject the former chief minister of Punjab, the former chief minister had petitioned the Supreme Court to run in the 2018 general elections.
The PTI president, who is now detained in Adiala Jail, petitioned the highest court under Article 185(3) of the Constitution to be granted permission to appeal the ruling made by the LHC on January 13, 2024.
Elahi’s nomination papers for the Punjab Assembly’s PP-34 (Gujrat-VIII) and National Assembly’s NA-64 (Gujrat-III) seats were turned down.
Elahi’s appeal was considered by a three-judge Supreme Court bench that included Justices Mansoor Ali Shah, Jamal Khan Mandokhail, and Athar Minallah.
In the lawsuit, Elahi was represented by attorney Faisal Siddiqui.
Elahi’s attorney made his case by pointing out irregularities in the criticisms made by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the other contenders.
Siddiqui informed the bench, “We don’t want an election delay.” He pleaded with the court to allow his client to run in the next Gujarati elections.
Voters’ freedom to vote shouldn’t be restricted, according to Justice Minallah.
According to him, the role of a returning officer is to assist the electoral process rather than to impede it.
Justice Minallah said, “It is odd that all of this is happening to only one political party.”
According to Justice Shah, elections should encourage inclusivity rather than exclusion.
He cited Article 17 as saying that no one can be prevented from running for office without good cause.
The Supreme Court justice ruled that voting rights cannot be restricted by the Constitution through elections.
Elahi’s nomination papers from PP-32 were rejected by the RO, but the supreme court allowed him to run for the Gujarat provincial assembly seat after hearing the arguments.
Elahi retracted his petitions against the denial of nomination papers from two NA seats and other constituencies.
Elahi’s nomination papers were challenged on a number of grounds, including asset concealment, failure to disclose shares in other companies, failure to open separate bank accounts for expenses in both constituencies, document errors, and submission of documents without oath commission verification.
The prominent PTI politician has been detained since his original arrest on June 1st of last year in connection with a Rs70 million graft case involving the misappropriation of development funds designated for the Gujrat district.
After being freed on multiple occasions, he was promptly taken into custody again in a number of instances, including one involving money laundering and another involving claims of improper appointments in the Punjab Assembly.
The top court permitted PTI candidates Tahir Sadiq and Omer Aslam Awan to run in the polls from NA-49 (Attock) and NA-87 (Khushab) constituencies, respectively, in addition to Elahi.
While Basra received permission to run in elections from NA-163 (Bahawalnagar), Sanam is permitted to run in polls from NA-119, NA-120, and PP-125.
