IHC suspends ECP’s disqualification order of Umar Amin Gandapur
ISLAMABAD, Feb 08 (SABAH): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) disqualification order of Umar Amin Gandapur, brother of Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Ali Amin Khan Gandapur. However the court has said that the observations made by ECP regarding Ali Amin Gandapur will remain intact.
During the hearing of the case, the counsel of the plaintiff Senator Barrister Syed Ali Zafar argued the Election Commission of Pakistan issued the order without proper procedure as only a fine of Rs50,000 can be imposed after a summary inquiry and further action can be only be taken if code of conduct is violated again.
The counsel further argued that plaintiff’s brother, who is also a federal minister, was fined while Umar Amin Gandapur was disqualified for code of conduct violation.
A day earlier, the Election Commission bench headed by CEC Dr. Sikandar Sultan Raja had disqualified Umar Amin from running for mayor in Dera Ismail Khan for flouting the code of conduct of the upcoming local government polls. It also barred Ali Amin from addressing any gathering or taking part in any political activity in the district.
Subsequently, Umar filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court against the decision which contended that ECP failed to meet the requirements of transparency.
The petition added that the disqualification decision should be quashed as it was taken without a summary inquiry; therefore, the code of conduct could not have been violated.
The plea lists the chief election commissioner (CEC), the regional election commission and Senator Barrister Kamran Murtaza as parties.
During Tuesday’s hearing, presided by IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah, counsels of Umar Amin, Barrister Ali Zafar and Chaudhry Ashraf Gujjar, appeared before the court.
“If the code of conduct is violated, the candidate is first fined Rs50,000 after the summary inquiry. Action can be taken when if it is violated for the second time,” Counsel Zafar prayed.
“Umar Amin’s brother was also fined for violating the election code of conduct. If Umar Amin had violated the said code of conduct then he should have been served a notice first.”
The counsel further prayed that his client was a mayoral candidate and he was disqualified without giving any notice. On the directions of the court, the ECP ruling verdict was read out loud.
“How did Umar Amin become a party to the case?” Wasn’t any notice issued?” the court inquired to which counsel Ashraf Gujar replied that no notice was issued to his client whereas the inquiry was against Ali Amin but the orders were issued against Umar Amin.
Suspending the ECP’s disqualification verdict, the court said that according to the petitioner’s lawyer, no report was sent by the monitoring team to the election commission.
“As far as Ali Amin Gandapur is concerned, the order of the Election Commission will remain on the field,” the court added.
The court issued notice to ECP seeking a reply on Friday, February 11. It also ordered it to provide copies of the verdict to the relevant parties immediately. Further hearing of the case has been adjourned till February 11.