Mayor elections of D I Khan: IHC suspends ECP’s Gandapur disqualification decision

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC), Tuesday, suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)’s decision of disqualifying the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, Umar Amin Gandapur, from contesting Dera Ismael Khan’s City Mayor elections.

A single bench of Chief Justice Athar Minallah issued the suspension orders, while hearing the PTI candidate for City Mayor DI Khan, Umar Amin Khan Gandapur, who is the brother of Federal Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.

The IHC bench said as far as Ali Amin Gandapur is concerned, the order of the ECP will remain on the field. Then, the court issued notices to the ECP seeking its reply and deferred the hearing till February 11.

Umar Amin Gandapur filed the petition through his counsels Barrister Ali Zafar and Chaudhary Ashraf Gujjar advocate and challenged the decision of the ECP barring him from contesting the elections of DI Khan’s City Mayor, which are scheduled to be held in the next four days.

Ali Zafar submitted that the petitioner was running his election campaign by duly abiding by the code of conduct and enabling provisions of the Election laws. He argued that his client’s rights under Section 234 of the Election laws have been violated for stopping him from contesting the elections.

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He said that Section 234 provides that a monitoring team will be constituted by the ECP in a region where elections are to be held and this team will monitor election campaigns of the contesting candidates to see that they are not violating the provisions of Election Laws and Rules. He added that in case a violation is noted, then the team will hold summary proceedings and, at best, can impose a fine upon a candidate. If the candidate repeats the same violation again, then the team is required under the law to refer the matter to the ECP for initiation of action against such candidate.

However, Barrister Zafar stressed that the law does not empower the election monitoring team or any of its member to take any decision on its own or refer the matter to the ECP prior to holding of summary proceedings.

In the case of the petitioner, Barrister Zafar told the court that Regional Election Commissioner (Respondent No3) was the District Monitoring Officer and he never sent any notice to the petitioner notifying violations of any provisions of the Elections Laws or Rules. Neither any summary proceedings were held nor were the matter referred to the ECP by the Respondent No3 for initiation of an action against the petitioner.

He continued that instead, the ECP took notice of the matter on its own, disregarding the mandatory provisions of Election Laws as described under Section 234.

He further argued that if the law provides for a specific procedure then the procedure must be followed in letter and spirit. Barrister Zafar stated that by bypassing the mandatory provision under Section 234, the ECP had abrogated the authority of Respondent No3 and passed an order dated 07/02/2022 in violation of Section 234 of Election Laws by illegally and unlawfully disqualifying the petitioner from contesting the election.

Barrister Zafar contended that even otherwise as per the judgments of the Superior Courts of Pakistan (2006 SCMR 1485), during the pendency of a constitution petition against a decision of disqualification by ECP, the candidate is allowed to contest the elections.

Therefore, he prayed before the court that the ECP’s order dated 07/02/2022 disqualifying the petitioner from contesting DI Khan’s City Mayor election may be declared illegal forthwith and he be allowed to resume his election campaign under the law and contest the election.

After hearing the arguments, the IHC’s chief justice suspended the decision of the ECP and adjourned the hearing.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022