A single bench of the IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq heard the petition and directed the respondents to submit their written replies before the next hearing and deferred the proceedings for two weeks.
Mir Muhammad Asghar Khan Mari, district secretary general PML-N Sibi, and Muhammad Ajmal Awan, district president of Zhob, moved the petition through their counsel Muhammad Ishtiaq Advocate.
The petitioners stated that they are committed members of PML-N and the acting provincial president and acting provincial secretary general announced the schedule for conducting intra-party election on provincial level, which were held accordingly on 23 -11- 2018.
They adopted that as the schedule was announced without observing mandatory requirements of party constitution so they called the conduct of intra-party election in question, but the provincial office-bearers without adhering to the legitimate objections of the petitioners conducted the so-called elections in fanciful manner on 23-11-2018.
Then, they filed the petition before the ECP which was dismissed by the order dated 8-8-2019 inter alia on the ground that the petitioners did not challenge the provincial intra-party election before the election tribunal of party and further that they have challenged the elections before the commission with a delay of two months and did not file any application for condonation of delay.
They maintained that the said order of ECP is illegal, without a lawful authority and is liable to be set aside. Therefore, they prayed to the court that an impugned order dated 8-8-2019 passed by the learned ECP may be declared to be illegal and without a lawful authority and may be set aside, and intra-party election conducted on 23-11-2018 without adopting procedure as well as the law along with all events and ancillary there to be declared null and void, and also the acting provincial president and general secretary may be directed to conduct intra-party election afresh by following the constitution of PML-N strictly in accordance with law.