Parvez Elahi out of election race, wife gets go-ahead for polls

• LHC upholds verdicts of appellate tribunal, returning officer.
• Court rejects Moonis Elahi’s appeal for acceptance of nominations.
• Qaisara Elahi granted permission to contest February 8 elections

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has rejected Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Parvez Elahi’s plea against the rejection of his nomination papers, however, his wife Qaisara was granted permission to contest the February 8 general elections from two constituencies.

A three-member bench headed by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi issued the verdict on pleas filed by the embattled party's president and his wife challenging the appellate tribunal’s and returning officer’s (RO) decisions.

The high court upheld the verdicts given by the RO and appellate tribunal regarding the rejection of Elahi’s nomination papers from NA-64 and PP-32.

Additionally, the LHC full bench also rejected Moonis Elahi’s appeal against the rejection of his nominations from NA-64, NA-69, PP-32, and PP-34.

However, Qaisara's nomination papers from NA-64 and PP-32 have been accepted for contesting the forthcoming general polls.

On January 8, an election tribunal rejected Elahi and his wife's appeals against the rejection of their nomination papers from NA-59 and PP-23, upholding RO’s decision of declaring them "disqualified" for concealing asset details and other information.

A series of objections had been raised against them, which included the concealing of assets, non-disclosure of shares in different companies, Qaisara’s foreign visit, non-compliance with the rule to open separate bank accounts for expenditures in both constituencies, technical mistakes in documents and submitting documents without verification from the oath commission.

The senior PTI leader was initially arrested on June 1 in a Rs70 million graft case related to the embezzlement of development funds allocated for the Gujrat district and has been behind bars ever since.

He was released several times in between, only to be re-arrested immediately in different cases, including a money laundering case and allegations of illegal appointments in the Punjab Assembly.