PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on pleas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mohammad Sohail Afridi and a candidate supported by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in recent by-elections in Haripur, Shehrnaz Omar Ayub, who challenged issuance of notices to them by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for allegedly violating election code of conduct.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Wiqar Ahmad heard arguments of counsel of the two petitioners and representatives of ECP.

The chief minister has challenged the notice issued to him on Nov 20 by ECP, wherein he has been accused of delivering provocative speech against government functionaries in connection with by-elections in NA-18 Haripur.

ECP claimed that the speech of chief minister was contrary to code of conduct issued by the commission for by-polls that were held on Nov 23.

Mr Afridi has requested the high court to declare as illegal and set aside the impugned notice issued to him on Nov 20 by ECP. He also requested the court to restrain respondents including ECP through its secretary, provincial election commissioner of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, district returning officer and returning officer of NA-18 from taking any adverse action against him in pursuant to the impugned notice.

Commission has also issued notice to PTI-backed candidate in by-polls

Advocate Bashir Wazir appeared for Mr Afridi and argued that the impugned notice was wholly illegal and violative of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 9, 10A, 17 and 25 of the Constitution.

He stated that the notice was issued to the petitioner, who was accused of misuse of powers which by itself was a hearsay allegation against the chief minister of the province.

During course of hearing, Justice Ali observed that once the petitioner joined proceedings before ECP, he should have waited for the outcome there. Justice Wiqar also observed that so far no adverse action was taken by the commission against the petitioner.

The bench wondered would it have not been better that the petitioner had approached the court after any negative action against him by the commission.

Mr Wazir argued that the petitioner was chief minister of the province and ever since he had assumed office he had been addressing public meetings in different areas. He stated that the petitioner had addressed a public gathering in Havelian (Abbottabad), which was not in NA-18 constituency.

He said that ECP stated in the notice, issued under section 234 of Elections Act 2017, that the petitioner had hurled threats at state functionaries.

He read out transcript of the speech of the petitioner, stating that he had only warned that action would be taken against those found involved in rigging the by-polls.

The counsel said that presently proceedings had been in progress against the petitioner at two forums- the district, monitoring officer (DMO) and ECP.

The additional director law of ECP, Khurram Shehzad, argued that ECP was fully empowered to take notice of any violation of the election code of conduct under section 234 of Elections Act.

He stated that it was the mandate of ECP to implement the code of conduct and take notice of any violation thereunder.

He said that threatening personnel of ECP was also violation of the code of conduct.

In the case of Ms Shehrnaz Omar Ayub, Mr Wazir argued that his client was a contesting candidate in the by-election, but she had neither attended nor addressed the public meeting in question. He added that the notice issued to her on Nov 20 was illegal and liable to be set aside.

When the bench asked as to why notice was issued to her as she had not delivered any speech, the ECP official stated that the petitioner should appear before the commission to clarify her position. He added that the commission had so far not taken any action against her.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2025