MULTAN: The Lahore Court Multan bench issued notices to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday for declaring a PML-N candidate ineligible for chairman of the district council.

On Dec 15, District and Sessions Judge Bahadur Ali Khan had declared Dewan Abbas Bukhari ineligible on the appeal of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf candidate for district council chairman, Umer Farooq, and vice chairmen Malik Muhammad Jamshed, Javed Iqbal, Zaffar Iqbal and Fayaz Hussain.

They had submitted an objection with the returning officer that Bukhari had been elected chairman of the Union Council-180 (UC) Alipur Sadaat and laterresigned to contest byelection of NA-153.

They stated that Bukhari`s resignation had been accepted and he had contested the bypoll and secured 277 votes. But he had now submitted his nomination papers for the chairman`s slot despite the fact that only a district council member could contest the election.

They had contended the decision of the returning officer to declare Bukhari eligible for the Dec 22 election was unlawful.

Bukhari`s counsels argued that their client had resigned from the chairmanship to contest the election, but later withdrew the resignation.

The district and sessions court, while agreeing with the counsel of complainant, had disqualified Bukhari which also led to the rejection of nomination papers ofhis vice chairmen. It also stated that under the law Bukhari could not have contested the bypoll without resigning from the UC.

It said Bukhari had resigned on Feb 18, 2016 and as per law his resignation was accepted the same day.

Although the resignation had not been submitted to the of ficer concerned, it did reach the election commission, which was the actual forum.

This situation created a problem for the PML-N as the party had not submitted nominations of covering candidates.

On Monday, Bukhari had filed a petition with the Lahore High Court Multan bench against the district and sessions court`s decision. Justice Aminuddin directed to issue a notice to the ECP while fixing Tuesday (today) as the next date of hearing.