Three witnesses to appear before JC today are all retired

ISLAMABAD: All the three witnesses, who have been summoned by the Judicial Commission, which is inquiring into charges of deliberate systematic manipulation in the 2013 general elections, to depose on Wednesday have since retired from the government service.
They had served in Punjab when the last parliamentary polls were held on May 11, 2013. They figured in the list of 14 witnesses provided to the commission by the PTI.Mehboob Anwar, who was provincial election commissioner (PEC) of Punjab in the elections, superannuated on December 31, 2014. He was one of the principal targets of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which accused him of being involved in rigging against it and in favour of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
Another witness Javed Iqbal, having the domicile of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), who was the Chief Secretary (CS) of Punjab, has also retired.He was appointed to this top bureaucratic slot after the PTI had turned down the previous nomination of Qamar Zaman, who was later named as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), for the same position. The PTI then charged that he was a loyalist of Sharif brothers.
Caretaker Chief Minister Najam Sethi had picked up Javed Iqbal as his chief secretary with the involvement of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the consent of the PTI.The bureaucratic arrangement headed by Sethi had unprecedentedly uprooted dozens of senior officials, who, it claimed, were close to the Sharif brothers and could influence the elections in the PML-N’s favour. But there were four exceptions - Home Secretary Shahid Khan (who is currently serving as the interior secretary), Health Secretary Arif Nadim (brother of Dr Yasmin Rashed, who contested election against Nawaz Sharif from Gowalmandi Lahore), Finance Secretary Tariq Bajwa, currently Federal Board of Revenue Chairman, who is son-in-law of Col (R) Ghulam Sarwar, affiliated with the PTI, who could not get its ticket due to his death, and Education Secretary Aslam Kamboh, who had been allowed to remain in their positions.
After surrendering to the federal government or sidelining a large number of senior officials, Sethi had brought in officers, who were favourites of the previous PML-Q chief minister. However, no bureaucratic changes were made in the other three provinces by the caretaker governments. Punjab was the exception for this upheaval despite the ECP order to all the provinces of the contrary.
The third witness, Rao Iftikhar, who has been summoned by the commission for Wednesday, had served as the additional CS of Punjab. He had also been appointed by the interim chief minister.
The other witnesses, who will be called by the commission later, include Nabeel Gabol, who was elected on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) ticket from NA-246 Karachi and later resigned; Sethi, Hamid Mir, PEC Sindh SM Tariq Qadri, National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) Chairman Usman Yousaf Mobeen, Muddassir Rizvi, head of Free and Fair Election Network; and five managing directors of Postal Foundation Press, Printing Corporation of Pakistan and Security Printing Press of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
What first PTI witness Ishaq Khakwani, who heads the party’s task force, has produced before it is the material annexed with the petitions, which were filed in the election tribunals. His documents also included the petitions and documents submitted by the PML-N candidates to the tribunals, PML-N lawyer Shahid Hamid argued before the commission on Tuesday and said that Khakwani has not given any proof from his own side and has presented old documents.
“Khakwani is not the author or witness of these uncertified documents, which are inadmissible; and what he has produced relates to the election disputes, which have either been dismissed or are pending before the Supreme Court or an election tribunal,” Shahid Hamid said raising his objections. “He is not an agent in respect of any of the 73 election petitions and none of these documents have been obtained from proper custody.”
Advocate Salman Akram Raja, who represented the ECP, pleaded that Khakwani himself was not confident about the authenticity of the material he has produced as was clear from his note. The PTI leader has collected ‘evidence’ and ‘proofs’ from here and there, he said, adding that his affidavit was deliberately vague and did not differentiate whether or not he received or collected these documents.
However, the commission will adjudge the veracity of the material later. It made clear that it doesn’t want to get into anything relating to the decision of a Lahore election tribunal regarding unseating of Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique when a lawyer tried to bring in that judgment.As the PTI candidate, Khakwani had lost to PML-N representative Sajid Mehdi from NA-168 Vehari by bagging 54,334 votes as against his rival’s 69,049 in the 2013 general elections.