The Election Court sitting in Shah Alam today dismissed the petition filed by BN candidate Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi to annul the 13th general rlection result for the Batu Pahat parliamentary seat, which was won by PKR.

Judge Suraya Othman dismissed the petition after hearing the preliminary objection by the respondent Mohd Idris Jusi's counsel Haliza Abdullah and ordered RM20,000 in costs to him.

Mohd Idris won the seat by a majority of 1,732 votes in the May 5 election.

NONE Justice Suraya held that the petitioner had failed to plead on one of the issues raised in his preliminary objection that a treat hosted by Mohd Idris prior to the polling day was an offence under Section 11(1)(b) of Election Offences Act 1954.

She ruled that the Puad ( left ) also failed to plead on the actual date of the advance polling date, which was on April 30, but had just stated it as May 5.

"The advance voting date was not pleaded as required under Rule 4(1) and 4(4) of the Act," ruled Suraya, stressing that it was a critical error by the petitioner.

In his petition, Mohd Puad, who was represented by Edmund Bon, named the PKR candidate as the only respondent.

Meanwhile, Suraya postponed the hearing of the Labis parliamentary seat petition to tomorrow afternoon, following the objection of Gobind Singh Deo, counsel for petitioner S Ramakrishnan against senior federal counsel S Narkunavathy's application to raise a preliminary objection.

Narkunavathy raised an objection on behalf of the Election Commission and returning officer of the constituency.

Gobind told the court that during the case management, counsel for both respondents had not indicated a preliminary objection.

Ramakrishnan of DAP lost to BN candidate Chua Tee Yong by 353 votes.

- Bernama