A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) here Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking disqualification of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and upheld the decision of the Returning Officer. The bench held in its decision that the petitioner had failed to provide evidence to substantiate his allegations against Nawaz Sharif.
The petition was filed by a freelance journalist, Shahid Orakzai, saying that after 1993 general elections Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif had struck an oral deal with him under which he was assigned the task to purchase the loyalties of seven members of national assembly hailing from Fata in the then Speaker's election.
They had promised to give Rs 17.5 million to him and had paid Rs 10.05 million in advance. He pointed out that he had successfully completed the task and purchased loyalties of Haji Barooz Khan, Malik Bismillah Khan, Abdul Qayyum, Haji Arsalan Khan, Muhammad Zulifqar, Muhammad Afzal and Haji Muhammad Shah Afridi.
However, PML-N lost Speaker's election and party's then general secretary Sartaj Aziz blamed that the said seven MNAs had not cast votes in favour of PML-N candidate Gohar Ayub Khan. Later Nawaz Sharif declined to pay remaining amount. He requested the court to reject the nomination papers of Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz Sharif is not contesting by-election after the new schedule was announced for election and withdrew his nomination papers.