' Through this Constitutional petition the petitioner has assailed the orders dated 10.10.2015 passed by Respondent No. 2 whereby he accepted nomination paper of Respondent No. 3 to contest election for the seat of General Member Ward Np. 7 of Municipal Committee Kot Samaba Distt.
Rahim Yar Khan and the order dated 31.10.2015 passed by Respondent No. 1 whereby appeal filed by the petitioner was dismissed.
2. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that wife of Respondent No. 3 was owner of certain land in Mouza Mud Kora and Mouza Wahi Jumman Shah and also owner of certain shops in Mouza Kot Samaba; that Respondent No. 3 is running his business under the name and style of AI-Saeed Contractor and that the said respondent is defaulter of loan obtained from Muslim Commercial Bank. But he did not disclose all the above assets and liability in his Declaration of Assets and Liabilities form and as such he was disqualified from contesting election but Respondents No. 1 and 2 have not paid any heed to the objections and illegally accepted the nomination paper.
3. On the other hand learned Standing Counsel assisted by learned counsel for Respondent No. 3 has, defended the impugned orders. Learned counsel for Respondent No. 3 submits that the said respondent has clearly mentioned 20 acres landed property which includes land of his wife.
Likewise he has mentioned the said shops in his Declaration 'of Assets along with other details as such the objections raised by the petitioner are not sustainable. With regard to ownership of firm, namely, Al-Sayed Contractors, learned counsel submits that the said firm was got registered on 3.9.2004 for one year and thereafter the same was not got renewed as such presently the same being not operative, the respondent did not mention the same.
5. Arguments heard and record perused.
6. As per Section 27(2)(0 of the Punjab Local Government Act, 2013 a person is liable to be disqualified from being elected as member of a local government, if he is under an existing contract for work to be done or goods to be supplied to a local government or has otherwise any direct pecuniary interest in its affairs. Since it has not been established by learned counsel for the petitioner that Respondent No. 3 is under any existing contract with the local government or has any other pecuniary interests, as such this objection of the petitioner is not well founded.
7. So far as allegation of concealment of property of the spouse is concerned, I have gone through the copies of record of rights of the agricultural land of Respondent No. 3 and his wife placed on record. It transpires that after calculating both pieces of land of the spouses the same would come to 20 acres which has already been mentioned by the said respondent in his nomination form.
Likewise he has also mentioned ownership of 10 shops. Therefore, the objection of concealment raised by learned counsel for the petitioner has no force. It would not be out of place to mention here that concealment/nondisclosure of assets and liabilities is one thing and incomplete disclosure of assets and liabilities is another. In my opinion the first one entails penal consequences but the second one can be considered to be an irregularity.
8. In this view of the matter, I am of the affirm view that case of Respondent No. 3 does not suffer from the disqualification enumerated in Section 27(2)(0 of the Punjab Local Government Act, 2013 or concealment of Assets or Liabilities.
9. Resultantly, I do not find any force in this petition which is accordingly dismissed.
10. It may, however, be mentioned that this petition has been decided on the basis of tentative assessm ent permitted by law. If Respondent No. 3 is declared returned candidate and petitioner, still feels aggrieved, he would be at liberty to avail his remedy before the Election Tribunal where he would have full opportunity to substantiate his stance by producing evidence.