ECP notifies Imran's victory on seven NA seats.

ISLAMABAD -- The Election CommisAsion of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday notified the victory of PTI Chairman Imran Khan from seven National Assembly constituencies in by-polls held in October, taking a lenient view of his delay in submitting election expense details.

The notification - earlier withheld after Mr Khan failed to submit the details of by-poll expenses within the stipulated time - was issued hours after the commission announced a reserved verdict condoning the delay.

The decision comes at a time when the PTI chief is planning to break his own record by contesting by-polls on all 33 National Assembly seats that fell vacant after Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf accepted long-pending resignations of party lawmakers, apparently to derail PTI's return to the house.

Under the law, contesting candidates should submit details of election expenses to the ECP within 10 days after the polling day, and a failure may lead to disqualification. The ECP, however, is empowered to condone the delay.

A three-member ECP panel headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, while announcing the decision reserved on Dec 20 noted that contesting an election was a fundamental right in terms of Article 17(2) of the Constitution and court judgements.

Notification earlier withheld after PTI chief failed to submit by-poll expense details in time

Referring to Article 223(2) of the Constitution, the ECP order also pointed out that Mr Khan would have to resign from all but one seat within a month after the declaration of the result.

The by-polls were held on nine seats after the National Assembly speaker, like he did earlier this week, accepted resignations of some of the PTI lawmakers who resigned en masse in April after Mr Khan was deposed as prime minister through a confidence vote in parliament.

Mr Khan then ran for eight of those vacant seats and emerged victorious on seven of them after losing one seat to PPP's Abdul Hakeem Baloch in Karachi's Malir.

The seven constituencies bagged by the PTI chief were NA-22 (Mardan), NA-24 (Charsadda), NA-31 (Peshawar), NA-108 (Faisalabad), NA-118...