Supreme Court moved against PML-N senators-elect Ishaq Dar, Kareem

ISLAMABAD: As a last-ditch attempt, two petitions challenging the election of PML-N leaders – former finance minister Ishaq Dar and Hafiz Abdul Kareem – on Senate seats were moved in the Supreme Court on Friday.

Mian Nawazish Ali Peerzada filed the petitions, requesting the apex court to declare the senators-elect ineligible to be member of the upper house of the Parliament.

He assailed the Lahore High Court verdict, which allowed both the PML-N leaders to contest Senate elections, which were held on March 03.

Ishaq Dar, facing charges of accumulating wealth beyond known sources of income, and Hafiz Abdul Kareem were elected on technocrat seats from Punjab in the recently held Senate polls.

The petitioner took the stance that Kareem didn’t possess credentials required to become a technocrat. The appellate tribunal’s decision to declare him as a religious scholar was not constitutionally and legally correct, he argued.

He said Ishaq Dar, however, has been declared a proclaimed offender by an accountability court in a graft case filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

How his nomination for Senate seat was declared to be in consonance with the Constitution and laws, the petitioner wondered.