In the first application taken up by a returning officer in Lahore before the upcoming elections, Additional District and Sessions Judge Rai Ayub Khan Marth has issued notice to former Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Rana Mashhood for March 26 for alleged deception by renaming Sodiwal Hospital after his father.
The judge also sought comments from the Nawankot SHO by March 26 and directed that a copy of the application be submitted to the monitoring team of the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Petitioner Muhammad Farhan said that boards had been put up at the hospital declaring it to be Rana Abdur Raheem Hospital, even though it was still identified as Sodiwal Hospital in the official records, and though the former deputy speaker’s father had nothing to do with its construction. Mashhood also inaugurated the hospital without informing the Health Department and without it being operational, he said. The hospital is plastered with PML-N banners, he added. The petitioner said that this had been done in order to influence voters ahead of the elections.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 24th, 2013.