The Lahore High Court (LHC) while accepting a petition has ordered to conduct fresh polls for Nazim and Naib Nazim in UC-38, T T Singh. Defeated candidates Mudassar Hussain Khan and Gulzar Ahmad had challenged the results of the election before a tribunal on the ground that Mulazim and Saleem were not matriculated who accepted the petition and declared them nazim and naib-nazim respectively.
Meanwhile, Mulazim and Saleem challenged the tribunal order before the Lahore High Court (LHC) and the petitioner counsel pleaded that the tribunal could order for re-polling only. He said the superior courts had already held, where the disqualification of a winning candidate was not notorious at the time of polling so that the voters could have taken notice of the disqualification.
He said the votes secured by such a candidate could not simply be thrown away for declaring the other candidate with next highest number of votes as elected in his place.
The LHC, while accepting the petition reiterated that merely judging whether Saleem was disqualified or not was not enough, it was equally important to judge whether his disqualification was known in the constituency at the time of polling. The court directed the election commission to hold fresh polls for the seat of nazim and naib-nazim.