The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday reserved the judgment on the maintainability of intra-court appeal filed by Senator Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani who challenged the rejection of his seven votes in chairman senate elections.
A division bench comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq MehmoodJahangiri heard the ICA of PPP’s leader Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani. The bench reserved the decision after the two sides concluded their arguments. The petitioner’s counsel Farook H. Naek also requested for permission to submit written arguments in the case and adopted the stance that the presiding officer for the Senate elections was appointed by the President of Pakistan.
He alleged that the presiding officer had misused his powers while rejecting the votes of his client during the election process. He further argued that only a candidate could come up to challenge such matters instead of the voters. The council said, not a single voter was given an extra ballot paper to cast his or her vote after the rejection of their previous vote. He said the presiding officer had asked his candidate to challenge the decision before the election tribunal if they wanted.
After the arguments, the court reserved its judgment on the maintainability of the ICA. Earlier, a single member bench had dismissed the same case of Mr. Gilani stating that the parliamentary affairs couldn’t be challenged in courts.
