The Lahore High Court acting as election tribunal dismissed an election petition against Provincial Law Minister, Rana Sana Ullah Khan as withdrawn and allowed him to contest by-election from Faisalabad PP-70.
Rana Sana Ullah on the direction of the tribunal appeared before it and submitted an affidavit regarding his statement about the judiciary saying that he believes in independence of judiciary and takes in high esteem the Supreme Court and the High Court. He stated that he never made any derogatory remarks about Chief Justice of Pakistan, Abdul Hameed Dogar and other judges.
He said "being a practising lawyer and a responsible citizen of Pakistan I have a constitutional obligation to express my opinion and hence in good faith I believe that provisional constitutional order of November 3, 2007 was an extra-constitutional act."Rana said that he never passed derogatory remarks against the judiciary and the statement, if any, has been published on his behalf was without any reference to the context.
A voter, Ubaid ullah had challenged the acceptance of nomination papers of the minister for Punjab assembly seat PP-70, Faisalabad. Petitioner alleged that Rana Sana Ullah made derogatory remarks about judiciary and tried to ridicule it. He also stated that Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is a deposed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan but Rana gave him protocol of Chief Justice which amounted contempt of apex court. He said that such a person could not be held eligible to contest the election requesting to declare his candidature as illegal.
Rana Sana was a PML-N candidate for PP-70 during the general elections of February 2008, which was postponed due to death of Pakistan Gharib Party's Chaudhry Asghar Ali Randhawa. Later when the provincial government was formed he was made the law minister. Under the article 132 of the Constitution he could remain the cabinet member for six month during which he had to win the election on provincial assembly seat.
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