IMRAN KHAN NOT BARRED FROM CONTESTING ELECTION: PAKISTANI COURT

Mon 24 October 2022:

On Monday, a Pakistani court stated that the recent decision by the country’s Election Commission could not prevent the former prime minister Imran Khan from running in any future elections, Anadolu Agency reported,

Imran Khan can run in any election in the future, said the Islamabad High Court’s chief justice.

Khan’s attorney, Barrister Ali Zafar, requested an immediate stay order against the election authority’s decision during the hearing of his petition, but Chief Justice Athar Minallah rejected the request and said there was no rush because the former premier would not have any issues.

Khan’s attorney stated that his client intended to run in the upcoming by-election in the Kurram district of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, located in the northwest.

However, the chief justice said there is no bar on Khan and he can contest it as he had been disqualified only from his current seat in the parliament.

The court ordered Zafar to remove objections raised by the registrar’s office earlier on his petition within three days and postponed the hearing for next week.

On Friday, Pakistan’s Election Commission disqualified Khan for failing to disclose gifts he received while serving as the country’s premier.

Khan was declared unseated from parliament by a five-member panel of the Election Commission of Pakistan, led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja.

The decision states that Khan should be prosecuted for hiding the specifics of gifts he received from various nations during his more than three-year tenure as prime minister.

Since being removed from office in a no-confidence vote in the parliament in April, Khan has organized a number of anti-government protests and has called for early elections, which are currently scheduled for late next year.

He won six of the seven National Assembly seats he was running for nationwide in a by-election earlier this week.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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