ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman and former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the amendments to the Elections Act, 2017.

According to the petition amendments to the Elections Act, 2017 disallow the overseas Pakistanis from voting electronically, thus they are discriminatory and violative of fundamental rights and merits.

Federation of Pakistan through the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) have been made as respondents in the petition.

The petition states that the amendment made to Section 94(1) violated the fundamental right to vote of 10 million overseas Pakistanis, who send home remittances of approximately $30 billion annually, constituting approximately 10 per cent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product”.

The petition further states that under Article 5(2) of the Constitution, overseas Pakistanis were subject to the laws of Pakistan and even to its tax laws under “certain circumstances”.