The Lahore High Court election tribunal has dismissed PML-N’s Pervaiz Rasheed’s appeal against the rejection of the nomination papers for the Senate elections.

He appeared before the tribunal on Tuesday.

His lawyer said that he has contested the elections before too and no one ever raised any objection.

On February 20, Rasheed filed a petition challenging the rejection of his nomination papers. According to the returning officer, he was a defaulter of Punjab House in Islamabad, and his nomination will only be accepted after the dues are paid.

Rasheed owes Rs7.05 million to the government, which includes Rs0.69m for his stay from January to August in 2011 and Rs6.4 million for his stay between June 2013 and May 2018.

During the hearing on February 22, his lawyer Azam Nazir told the court that Rasheed went to Punjab House and waited for 28 hours but there was no official on the seat to collect the money. “Despite multiple notices by the court we were not given any outstanding payments records,” he claimed.

To this, Judge Waheed asked the leader why he didn’t make the payments on time. “You should have had cleared the dues the moment you left Punjab House.”