Candidate not bound to be present during scrutiny: Dilshad

ISLAMABAD: Former Election Commission of Pakistan Secretary Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad has said that it was not necessary for a candidate to appear before the returning officer while filing nomination papers or during scrutiny.

According to Section 62 of the Election Act, 2017, the candidate is not required to be present at the time of scrutiny of nomination papers.

The former ECP secretary said that an election order was issued by former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in 2002, under which the candidate was required to be present while filing nomination papers.

Kanwar Dilshad said the election order was malicious and aimed at targeting Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, so that they could not appear before the returning officer. He said that in 2007, the Election Commission of Pakistan amended the Election Order 2002, after which Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif did not need to submit their nomination papers and appear in person at the time of scrutiny.

“At the time of scrutiny of nomination papers, the candidate’s election agent, proposer and a voter who has registered an objection under sub-section (1) shall be present. The returning officer shall give him reasonable opportunity of scrutinizing all nomination papers. Nowhere in this section is mentioned that the candidate must be present before the returning officer at the time of submission of nomination papers or scrutiny,” he added.

He said it was a very important legal point that every candidate needed to understand. He maintained that 32,000 nomination papers had been filed, which was a record. “With this, the talk of snatching nomination papers of some candidates became ineffective,” he claimed.