ISLAMABAD: Regardless of the lapse of the constitutionally mandated 30-day interval, the Election Fee of Pakistan (ECP) is but to declare vacant six of the seven Nationwide Meeting seats gained by PTI chief Imran Khan in October final 12 months.
These by-polls have been held on 9 seats after the Nationwide Meeting speaker accepted the resignations of some PTI lawmakers who resigned en masse in April, following Mr Khan’s ouster as prime minister by way of a no-confidence vote in parliament.
When Mr Khan gained the seven seats in October, he was already holding a Nationwide Meeting seat from Mianwali. He gained six seats on October 16 and bagged one other seat from NA-45 (Kurram) on October 30.
Mr Khan then contested eight of these vacant seats and emerged victorious on seven of them after shedding one seat to PPP’s Abdul Hakeem Baloch in Karachi’s Malir space.
If PTI chief doesn’t point out choice inside 30 days, he routinely retains solely the final seat contested, i.e. NA-45 (Kurram)
Beneath the legislation, the time of 1 month for Mr Khan to resolve which seat he needs to maintain expired final week, and all seven seats, aside from the final one he gained from Kurram, have been imagined to be declared vacant by the ECP days in the past.
Though no ECP official would touch upon the event, background interviews counsel that the fee — preoccupied in the intervening time with the query of common elections in Punjab and KP — could have forgotten to make an announcement on this regard. In actual fact, sources counsel that there’s “no mala fide intention behind it, moderately an oversight”.
Beneath Article 223 (1) of the structure, no particular person can maintain a couple of seat in any home of parliament on the similar time.
The article in query states: “Nothing in clause (1) shall forestall an individual from being a candidate for 2 or extra seats on the similar time, whether or not in the identical physique or in numerous our bodies, but when he’s elected to a couple of seat he shall, inside a interval of thirty days after the declaration of the end result for the final such seat, resign all however one in every of his seats, and if he doesn’t so resign, all of the seats to which he has been elected shall develop into vacant on the expiration of the mentioned interval of thirty days besides the seat to which he has been elected final or, if he has been elected to a couple of seat on the identical day, the seat for election to which his nomination was filed final.”
On Jan 19, ECP had notified Mr Khan’s victory in seven Nationwide Meeting constituencies in by-polls held in October, taking a lenient view of the delay he incurred in submitting election expense particulars.
This occurred at a time when Mr Khan was aiming to interrupt his personal file by contesting by-polls on all 33 Nationwide Meeting seats that fell vacant after Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf accepted the long-pending resignations of PTI lawmakers.
The notification — earlier withheld after Mr Khan didn’t submit particulars of by-poll bills inside the stipulated time — was issued hours after the fee introduced a reserved verdict condoning the delay.
Beneath the legislation, contesting candidates ought to submit particulars of election bills to the ECP inside 10 days after the polling day, and a failure could result in disqualification. The ECP, nevertheless, is empowered to condone the delay.
A 3-member ECP panel, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, had famous on the time that contesting an election was a basic proper by way of Article 17(2) of the Structure and court docket judgements. The seven constituencies bagged by the PTI chief are: NA-22 (Mardan), NA-24 (Charsadda), NA-31 (Peshawar), NA-108 (Faisalabad), NA-118 (Nankana Sahib), NA-239 (Korangi), and NA-45 (Kurram). The ninth seat — NA-157 (Multan) — was contested by PTI’s Meher Bano Qureshi, daughter of celebration chief Shah Mahmood Qureshi. Nonetheless, she was defeated by PPP’s Ali Musa Gilani, son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Revealed in Daybreak, February twenty fourth, 2023
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