Election tribunal dismisses PTI-backed candidate's plea challenging victory of PML-N’s Faisal Akram from PP-46

An election tribunal in Lahore has dismissed a petition filed by PTI-backed independent candidate Ruba Umar Dar challenging the victory of PML-N’s Faisal Akram in PP-46, Sialkot. The one-member tribunal, comprising retired Justice Mehmood Maqbool Bajwa, found that the petition failed to meet the mandatory legal requirements for verification under election law.

Ms Dar had alleged that the returning officer colluded to prepare Form-45 in disregard of the results recorded by her polling agents, and that the subsequent Forms 46 to 49 submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) were based on this tampering. However, the tribunal rejected these allegations, noting that the petition’s verification and supporting affidavits suffered from multiple defects and did not comply with Section 144 of the Elections Act, 2017.

Brief written by urgent.news from Dawn - Pakistan's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.