PTI's Sanam Javaid out of election race as tribunal rejects appeals

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Appellate Tribunal on Sunday dismissed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activist Sanam Javaid's appeals against the rejection of her nomination papers.

The tribunal upheld the returning officer (RO) decision to reject incarcerated Sanam’s nomination papers submitted from two National Assembly seats and one provincial assembly seat — NA-120, NA-119 and PP-150.

Justice Tariq Nadeem announced the verdict on her appeals.

On December 19, Sanam submitted her nomination papers announcing to contest elections against Maryam Nawaz from Lahore’s provincial assembly seat, PP-150.

Sanam is among dozens of PTI workers and leaders who are in custody in connection with the May 9 riots that broke out following the arrest of PTI founder Imran Khan in a graft case.

She was booked in multiple cases including an attack on the Corps Commander House in Lahore and torching of police vehicles in the Cantonment area during the violent protests earlier this year.

On the other hand, the tribunal reserved a decision on an appeal filed by Nadeem Sherwani against the acceptance of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz’s nomination papers by the returning officer from NA-119.

The decision was reserved after the petitioner submitted additional documents to support his appeal.

Meanwhile, the LHC Appellate Tribunal overturned RO’s decision of rejecting the nomination papers of PTI leader Hammad Azhar and his father Mian Azhar from PP-171 over their seconders and proposers’ not showing up.

Their seconders and proposers appeared before the tribunal upon which Justice Ahmed Nadeem Arshad announced the verdict in their favour.

However, Justice Tariq Nadeem dismissed Azhar’s appeal against rejection of his papers from the NA-129 constituency.