Thumb verification in NA-154: SC vacates stay order

Asks election tribunal to hold proceedings on daily basis.

ISLAMABAD:

Accepting a plea by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the apex court on Friday vacated the Lahore High Court (LHC) stay order on the verification of thumb impression at a National Assembly constituency in Lodhran district of Punjab.

The Supreme Court’s three-judge bench, headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, asked the Election Tribunal (ET) to hold proceedings on a daily basis for the verification of thumb impression in the constituency.

The PTI leader Jehangir Khan Tareen – a runner-up candidate at NA-154 constituency in the 2013 general elections – had filed an application against the winning candidate from Pakistan Muslim League –Nawaz (PML-N), Siddique Baloch.

Earlier, the election tribunal on May 21 had directed NADRA to carry out thumb verification but the PML-N candidate got stay order from the LHC on May 26.

The PTI leader, through his counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, had approached the top court against LHC order.

During the hearing on Friday, Baloch’s counsel Mian Abbas requested the bench to direct NADRA to give his client a copy of the voters’ record but the bench rejected his plea.

The PML-N candidate Siddique Baloch had got 86,177 votes while PTI’s Jehangir Khan Tarin had secured 75,955 votes in the May 2013 elections.

Earlier, ECP had already submitted in the Supreme Court the stance of the concerned returning officer (RO) regarding the alleged rigging at NA-125 constituency, where the PTI senior vice president Hamid Khan had contested in the May 11 vote.

In his letter, the RO Khalid Mahmood Bhatti had stated that appointments of polling officials were made from staff provided by the office of District Returning Officer Lahore.

These personnel belonged to different departments of federal/provincial government as well as autonomous bodies such as Government College University Lahore, which works under the HEC.

“About three days before the election day, Hamid Khan, a PTI candidate visited the undersigned and expressed reservations over the appointments of presiding officers.

“To alleviate his concerns and ensure impartiality and transparency – despite acute shortage of staff –more than 40 presiding officers belonging to aforesaid agencies and its sister organisations were replaced by the officials provided by the election cell of the District Returning Officer,” the letter said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2014.