SC larger bench constituted to hear Hajj corruption, election issues

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has constituted a six-member larger bench to resume from July 25 hearing of a suo motu case relating to Hajj arrangements corruption.

A six-member bench comprising the Chief Justice, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, Justice Tariq Parvez, Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Justice Ghulam Rabbani will resume hearing of progress on the pending issue.

The same bench on July 26, will take up election matters of the National Assembly including a pending constitutional petition filed by Ch. Muhammad Ilyas Gujjar, a candidate, against Election Commission's decision to allow filing of fresh nomination papers over NA-123 Lahore bye elections.

In his plea, he had contended that the election process in the constituency should have commenced from June 1, 2008, from where it had been stayed due to litigation, leaving no room for acceptance of fresh nomination papers.

He said that no order about filing of fresh nomination papers was passed by the apex court for NA- 55 Rawalpindi and it should have been adopted on NA-123 too.

He further contended that the date of polling for elections in NA-123 between him and other petitioners whose nomination papers had been scrutinised and accepted in terms of the apex court's judgment dated May 26, 2009, should have been announced.

Only six candidates from the constituency were in the run and they had been allotted election symbols, including PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, Qazi Kamran Gujjar, Mohammad Sajid Latif, Noor Elahi, Dr Amber Shahzada and the petitioner, Chaudhry Mohammad Ilyas Gujjar, he added.

The seat fell vacant after Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, PML-N senior vice president, elected on two other seats, vacated it under Article 223 of the Constitution.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011