The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday dismissed a petition seeking disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Petitioner Waheed Kamal had challenged the eligibility of the prime minister under article 199 of the constitution, arguing that Sharif had been accused in the Mehran Bank case and had allegedly received Rs3.3 million from Inter Services Intelligence to destabilise the Pakistan People’s Party government in the early 90s.
The petitioner had requested the court to disqualify Sharif. He had also requested the court to disqualify Member National Assembly Jamshed Dasti as he had leveled false allegations against parliamentarians. IHC judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui dismissed the petition after the preliminary hearing, terming it non-maintainable.
IHC puts its registrar, auctioneer on notice
The same court admitted a petition challenging the appointment of Amir Touseef Bhatti as court auctioneer on Friday and issued notices to its registrar and the auctioneer.
On May 28, the IHC administration had appointed Advocate Bhatti as a court auctioneer tasked with liquidating properties relating to different cases.
IHC Bar Association members Riasat Ali Gondal and Niazullah Niazi have challenged the appointment, arguing that the notification did not refer to any legal provisions under which the appointment was made.
The petitioners pointed out that under rule 65 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), a judge of a civil court or a banking court could appoint different lawyers as auctioneers, as and when required, for auctioning any property.
The petitioners informed the court that no proper procedure was adopted before the appointment was made and other advocates practicing in Islamabad were not given an opportunity to compete for the position.
They challenged that Bhatti has been accused of receiving kickbacks from a private contractor for granting permission to run a cafeteria on the IHC premises. They further alleged that the court auctioneer had defaulted on a bank loan and a case for recovery of the loan was being heard in a local banking court.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 11th, 2014.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
I am a minority member of the society.I like PMLn because they had quickly helped us built our house when the same were burned down by an angry mob a few years ago. Shahbaz Sharif Sb had overseen work himself. Glad to see that baseless cases against people who are actually working for the masses have been dismissed on merit.