MUZAFFARABAD: A larger bench of the of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court (HC) on Tuesday allowed Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United Nations Masood Abdullah Khan to contest AJK’s presidential election that would be held on August 16. He was nominated by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as its candidate for the presidential election, but he was not qualifying, as his name was not included in the AJK’s electoral roll. His application for inclusion of name in the electoral roll was rejected by the registration officer (RO) in Poonch on the ground that the specific time for inclusion of names in the electoral roll had lapsed, and a subsequent appeal against this decision was returned by the chief election commissioner (CEC) on the ground that the CEC had no power to reverse the judgement of the RO. Later, he filed a writ petition in the HC through his counsel Raja Muhammad Hanif, pleading that he was a state subject holder (first class citizen of AJK) and cannot be deprived of contesting presidential election on a mere technical ground. He said that such a provision of law was discriminatory and against the fundamental rights. The larger bench consisting of Justice M Tabasam Aftab Alvi, Justice Azhar Saleem Babar and Justice Raja Sadaqat accepted the writ petition and directed the RO to include his name in the electoral roll provisionally till the final disposal of the petition. The bench also suspended the RO’s judgement and the subsequent order of the CEC of returning his appeal against that judgement, and accepted the writ petition for regular hearing.
