SC dismisses petition seeking disqualification of Rashid

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition with a 2:1 verdict against President Awami Muslim League (AML) Sheikh Rashid Ahmed for mmis-declaration of his assets. A three-member bench comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, announced its verdict reserved earlier on March 20 on the appeal of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shakeel Awan.
Awan had accused Sheikh Rashid of misdeclaring his assets in the nomination forms that he had submitted to Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for 2013 general elections. Earlier, an election tribunal in Rawalpindi had dismissed the petition of Shakeel Awan, who had lost 2013 general elections to Sheikh Rasheed from NA-55 (Rawalpindi).
The 2:1 verdict in Sheikh Rashid's favour was read out by Justice Azmat Saeed. Justice Qazi Faez Isa wrote a dissenting note requesting the Chief Justice to constitute a bench preferably the full court to hear the appeal against Sheikh Rashid to decide the questions of law, which have arisen in the instant appeal and will also arise in other cases, identified and enumerated by him.
With regard to Article 184 (3) of the Constitution, the judgment authored by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed stated: "We cannot decline to exercise our jurisdiction under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, merely because no appeal is provided or filed against a decision made under it."
During the hearing of the case, the counsel for the appellant, had argued that Sheikh Rashid was involved in the concealment of assets as he had shown rent from properties as his source of income and Rs 2.2 million as profit from bank accounts when his bank statement reflected Rs 5.3 million from which Rs 2.2 million profit seemed not plausible.
He had contended that Sheikh Rashid had mentioned 983-kanal of agricultural land in the nomination papers for the 2013 general elections, while he actually owned 1,081-kanal agricultural land.
He had argued that Sheikh Rashid showed the purchase of 1 kanal of land in Bahria Gold City for over Rs 10 million when the booking price of the land was over Rs 48 million, whereas the current market price of the same land was around Rs 60 million.