Disqualification of Khwaja Saad Rafiq: application for restoration of plea dismissed

Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed an application for restoring the petition seeking disqualification of PML-N MNA Khwaja Saad Rafiq. The court dismissed the application due to non-prosecution as neither petitioner nor his counsel appeared in the court.
Petitioner, Humayun Akhtar Khan, through his counsel Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Advocate pleaded to restore proceedings of the petition afresh and decide the matter strictly on merit. Earlier, on April 1, the LHC had dismissed petition filed by Humayun Akhtar Khan seeking disqualification of Saad Rafiq for non prosecution.
Humayun Akhtar Khan, who had lost his general election to Khawaja Saad in NA-125 Lahore, had accused Saad Rafiq of concealing his assets at time of filing nomination papers and also not disclosing from where he earned huge money. He said Saad had claimed that he got huge money after winning prize bonds of Rs 40.37 million during 2003 to 2007, however, did not mention details of prizes before election commission.
In this case, Saad had submitted the copy of a prize bond worth Rs 50 million and an intimation letter from the State Bank regarding the winning of the bond and also submitted an income tax return of Rs 5 million, which was deducted from the prize bond.