LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to issue the details of all unverified votes of NA-120 before the start of polling process for the by-election.
Justice Ayesha A Malik disposed of a petition moved by PTI’s candidate Dr Yasmin Rashid challenging non-provision of list of unverified votes in the constituency.The petitioner through counsel contended that record of over 29,000 votes of the constituency was not available with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra). However, she said, the unverified votes were mentioned in the list prepared by the ECP. She asked the court to direct the ECP to conduct polling on the basis of verified votes only and the list of the unverified/disputed votes should also be released.
During the hearing, ECP’s counsel told the court that verification of votes was the responsibility of Nadra and not the commission. He said the ECP had asked the Nadra to verify the votes in question but the authority had not verified them.
The court showed annoyance over ECP’s lawyer for failing to provide voters’ list to the court. Justice Malik observed that the ECP had not taken any concrete step for the verification of votes in question. The objections, if not removed, could affect the result of the by-election, the judge added.
A deputy attorney general stated that changing the voter list was not possible as around 48 hours were left in the polling.Justice Malik disposed of the petition and directed the ECP to provide complete voter-list, including the unverified to the petitioner and all other candidates participating in the by-election.
Meanwhile, Justice Shahid Karim of the Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed a request of a voter from NA-120 to stay the by-election in the constituency. Sadaruddin Ahmad, the petitioner, alleged in a petition that state machinery had been used openly in support of Kulsoom Nawaz, candidate of ruling PML-N. He said the government started many development works in the constituency violating the code conduct laid down by the ECP.
The petitioner further alleged that the PML-N candidate also violated a ECP’s condition of spending not more than Rs1.5 million for election campaign by the candidates. He said sitting ministers and parliamentarians had been visiting the by-election constituency to woo the voters for Kulsoom Nawaz.
He pleaded that under such circumstances the by-election could not be held in a fair and free manner. Therefore, he asked the court to stay the polling as the ECP failed to ensure a fair election in NA-120.Hearing initial arguments of the petitioner, Justice Karim dismissed the petition for being not-maintainable.