DIK City Mayor’s polls: IHC declares ECP decision to disqualify Gandapur illegal

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Friday declared the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision of disqualifying the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, Umar Amin Gandapur, from contesting Dera Ismail Khan’s City Mayor elections as illegal.

A single bench of Chief Justice Athar Minallah announced the verdict after hearing the petition of PTI candidate for City Mayor DI Khan Umar Amin Khan Gandapur, who is brother of Federal Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.

The IHC bench held that Umar Amin is eligible for contesting the elections for City Mayor of DI Khan.

The IHC said; “For reasons to be recorded later, the petition is partially allowed to the extent of the disqualification of Umar Amin Khan Gandapur from contesting the elections to the office of Mayor, Dera Ismail Khan. The disqualification is, therefore, set aside.”

It added, “However, the petition is dismissed to the extent of paragraph 15(a) of the impugned judgment, dated 07-02-2022, whereby order has been passed against Ali Amin Khan Gandapur.” Umar filed the petition through his counsels Barrister Ali Zafar and Chaudhry Ashraf Gujjar Advocate and challenged the decision of ECP halting him from contesting the elections of DI Khan’s City Mayor.

Senator Barrister Syed Ali Zafar, representing Umar Amin Gandapur, submitted before the bench that his client was running an election campaign by duly abiding by the code of conduct and enabling provisions of the Election laws. He argued that his client’s rights under Section 234 of the Election laws have been violated for stopping him from contesting the elections.

He said that Section 234 provides that a monitoring team will be constituted by the ECP in a region where elections are to be held and this team will monitor election campaigns of the contesting candidates to see that they are not violating the provisions of Election Laws and Rules.

He added that in case a violation is noted, then the team will hold summary proceedings and, at best, can impose a fine upon a candidate. If the candidate repeats the same violation again, then the team is required under the law to refer the matter to the ECP for initiation of action against such candidate.

However, Barrister Zafar stressed that the law does not empower the election monitoring team or any of its members to take any decision on its own or refer the matter to the ECP prior to holding of summary proceedings.

Barrister Zafar argued that in the present case, the Regional Election Commissioner (Respondent No3) was the District Monitoring Officer and he never sent any notice to the petitioner notifying violations of any provisions of the Elections Laws or Rules. Neither any summary proceedings nor the matter referred to the ECP by the Respondent No3 for initiation of an action against the petitioner were held.

He continued that instead, the ECP took notice of the matter on its own, disregarding the mandatory provisions of Election Laws as described under Section 234.

He further argued that if the law provides for a specific procedure then the procedure must be followed in letter and spirit. Barrister Zafar stated that by bypassing the mandatory provision under Section 234, the ECP had abrogated the authority of Respondent No3 and passed an order dated 07/02/2022 in violation of Section 234 of Election Laws by illegally and unlawfully disqualifying the petitioner from contesting the election.

Barrister Zafar contended that even otherwise as per the judgments of Superior Courts of Pakistan (2006 SCMR 1485), during the pendency of a constitution petition against a decision of disqualification by ECP, the candidate is allowed to contest the elections.

Therefore, he prayed before the court that the ECP’s order dated 07/02/2022 disqualifying the petitioner from contesting DI Khan’s City Mayor election may be declared illegal forthwith and he be allowed to resume his election campaign under the law and contest the election.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022