A four-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, will hear the case. Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmani are other members of the bench.
On February 3, Hamid Khan, Imran’s lawyer, filed a follow-up application that despite clear directions by the court, the ECP had issued a notification for by-elections without preparing corrected electoral rolls that eliminated bogus voters. In his civil miscellaneous appeal, Imran has requested the court to restrain the ECP from holding by-elections on these voter lists.
Earlier, the ECP had stated that the deadline given by the Supreme Court to purge the lists of bogus votes by February 23, 2012 was ‘not humanly possible’, and had sought assistance from political parties for extension of the deadline.
COMMENTS (35)
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Where this Maryam and Colonel has gone now? I am that both are the same person.
@Maryam: Bogus votes do exist. In existing voter lists there are multiple votes for single persons, there are votes for dead people and there are votes for people who don't exist at all. People have one vote on old identity cards and one with the computerized ones. I saw some of that during 2008 elections myself and I am sure nobody can deny the fact that the present voter lists are faulty. So what's the fuss about.. Why don't some people want clean and valid voter lists? Why has Imran fobia extended so far?
@Maryam
Where is SAFDAR bhai....?
@ Colonel, I think you need to do the Computer studies again, infact go to first grade again. This judiciary (infact only CJ) come into power in 2007 before this Parliment, they just restored them not appointed them, same as they restored thousand of people fired from there jobs in 1997. So if you think people need to be educated than "YOU"LL BE THE FIRST". @Maryum "Please google the issue before commenting on it a simple advise :P
ok if bypolls are postponed for this reason then will SC also delay general elections for want of correct voter list?
@Tribune: Pl remove "Recommend" button and instead offer two buttons "Like" and "Dislike". Here many do irrational and emotional talk. sorry guys.
@saeed: Dont feed the trolls. If imran said tye sky is blue, they would not all the time.
@Colonel. Sometimes only your name is enough to suggest that you are not to be taken seriously. and in your case it perfectly does. Many thanks.
@Maryam: You don't know which party? It is none other then N
This is a usual phnenomena that "Army guys pertains less analytical skills or calibre, they are good for looking at superficial things", we the civilians needs to educate them about the back ground and deep thoughts.
@Colonel:
Yaar just stop this rant, give us some solution. Let's us take PTI/IK out of political landscape and let us hear some solutions from you. After all you have read 'black beauty' and 'confessions of economic hitman'. (pretty impressive:)!
@Colonel: @Maryam: First, one catches fish, not fishes! Second, the declaration of emergency rule by Musharraf was held to be unconstitutional under Article 279 of the Constitution of Pakistan, as was the removal from office of the Chaudhry and other justices - any non-corrupt judiciary would have determined this. As such, how can this judiciary is also fake?
@Neutral You are absolutely right.Both Maryam and Colonel do not comment on the news related to PPP's government, although these news are found in abundance.So, I have no doubt that these two have been assigned the duty to malign PTI on online newspapers.
@Colonel: I respect the fact that you support the current leadership as you are entitled to hold your own views and opinions. For me, the person or party that deserves my vote will be the one that has a clear vision, is credible and is a world apart from the current status quo and everyone knows who fits that bill.
Secondly, like yourself and Mr Saeed, I'm also an IT professional and if I were given the task to evaluate demographic data between 2 distinct databases to determine mismatches and missing data, (in either database) it would take me a few hours to come up with such a script/query and produce the desired list. I have done similar tasks a number of times in my 20 year professional career so far. I'm sure there are far more capable professionals than me to do this probably in much better ways.
Bottom line is, if there is a will, there is a way.
Only the people who are afraid of a genuinely free and fair elections will actually criticise this move by IK. Such political mavens can be easily identified wailing and moaning about the sanctity of democracy and people's mandate. It matters little to them whether those are invisible and non-existent people.
We are bypassing a basic question in this debate. Are the people in EC and NADRA competent and will do their job properly? If the answer is yes, then be patient and a reliable list will be presented when the work is complete. If the answer is no, then first put people in both organizations who can be trusted to do the job and second establish a system to audit and verify that the work is being done correctly. If you have a better suggestion, let us all have it.
@saeed: I agree with you wholeheartedly, Saeed. Colonel and Maryam post anti PTI and Imran Khan comments on any story published here by express tribune related to Imran Khan and PTI. I mean, at least, for once try to post some impartial comments but those two have made it so apparent that they are just here to bash PTI and Imran Khan irrespective of the foundation of the story. I don't think anyone should pay any attention to any comments posted by Maryam and Colonel. They both are anti PTI and Imran Khan; they are probably on the payroll of PML-N.
@Maryam We have not yet invented any system that could tell us which bogus vote has gone to which party.So your point seems illogical!The votes which have been termed as bogus are those that are not found in Nadra's record.Many of these voters had died,many others had double enteries in voter list.This made the whole system of voting dubious. @Colonel The judiciary was not restored by the mandate of this parliament.Rather,it was restored due to the 'Danda' of army chief.Had it not been the case, the PPP-led government would not have restored these judges till their deaths.Now you forget Imran Khan and start praying for your leader, Nawaz Sharif, in Asghar Khan case.
Imran Khan's appeal is step in right direction for strengthening democracy in Pakistan as it calls for holding elections on verified voter's list. I failed to understand why so called pro fake democracy people are dying to hold election on unverified voter's list and can't even wait till end of May (a date which ECP has given) to hold transparent by elections. Supreme Court has only asked ECP not to hold by elections on unverified voter's list and wait till ECP prepares verified votes list. Had they genuinely believed in democracy they would have welcomed this. But by bashing Imran on this they stand exposed. May be for them democracy is equal to PPP government (no matter how it comes to power even with fake votes or NRO deal with dictator).
There is no concept of democracy without rule of law. As per constitution of Pakistan, Supreme Court's job is to interpret constitution and laws to determine if laws are in violation of constitution or not. Supreme Court is doing its job here, ECP or government can't interpret constitution and must let Supreme Court do its job.
@saeed: u should be spending ur time on catching fishes, i admire ur love for imran but u must be politically literate to comment or draw conclusion over important political matter's, my dear u need to understand, PM's acts because of his power in parliament the mandate he has got in the parliament. U just chanted slogan and staged demonstrations at the time of restoration of judiciary and had no idea about anything, now again u r doing the same for the love of Imran khan
@saeed: My dear brother, let me first tell you that I have no imranophobia but Yes i have the love for democracy and its principles. Now for example Javed Hashmi won his Multan II (NA-149) election with 71,000 votes while his opponent from PPP got 45,000 votes in 2008 elections. So does this mean that Javed Hashmi won because he has bogus votes on his side while the PPP leader lost because he has no bogus votes? If this is the case then why Javed Hashmi loose Multan I (NA-148) to Shah Mahmood Qureshi by more than 60,000 votes?......Just you tell me that in the above two cases who has the bogus votes and who has not?....looking forward for your explanation. You can check the data at (http://ecp.gov.pk/GE2008.aspx).
@Jai zardari,:
Imran Khan is only applying the rights,given to him according Pakista's Election laws.
I endorse this move. A step in the right direction.
@saeed: Judiciary was restored by the single executive order of PM and parliament gives mandate to PM to issue such kind of order, so if the votes were bogus then with the mandate of this parliament Prime minister's every act and order's should be withdrawn, Do u understand?? Whole system should be brought down if thats the case, spare us with ur computer talk, u have no idea what u r talking about
@Colonel...Now I am totally convinced that you should strictly stick to computer scientist field if you really are one..discussing politics with a very laymen kind of knowledge will be really harmful for your health and others..who told you that the judiciary was restored by the parliament..were you on some kind of vacation all these years when we were fighting on the streets with this government to restore judiciary after the elections..do you have short term memory loss that you can not remember what and how the judicatory was restored..do you really think PPP government restored the judiciary..I will be interested to know your view on this..and what kind of databases are you talking...if you are a computer scientist then you should know that comparing two sets of databases is just a work of a simple script..if you really know what programming scripts are all about..
how about us overseas voters???
who got those bogus votes??? this debate is just another attempt to discredit democracy and parliament How many politicians launched appeals with election commission?? IMRAN KHAN IS PLAYING THE GAMEE OF PSEUDOPOLTICIANS, USE COURT OR ARMY TO LAUNCH HIM AND HIS RAGTAG ARMY OF AMATUERS
@saeed: Oh really u should be made the head of EC, i m a computer scientist and i never heard if these type of complex databases are formed within months, and u r suggesting just copy and paste list lol, u seem to be very wise guy, we are not obsessed with PTI. Imran said that these votes are bogus, so it implies the same to judiciary and parliament.
@Maryam: Agree with u, people need to be educated
Well can some one make me understand the comments of Maryam and Colonel..are they so novice or they are just commenting like this only because the petition if filled by Imran khan..and they have some kind of imran phobia...well only the people who are use to win election on bogus votes can comment like this..I dont understand the pain these people have as SC only directed EC to comapre voter lsits with Nadra lsits...so If EC can not do it then give it to me I will do it in 1 day by just to copy and paste from NADRA database to EC...what is with this voter verification....who ever has the NIC he or she is eligible for vote...thats it..now tangling all this issue shows what kind of democracy we have in status co pakistani political parties..and for Maryam..a thief can not unveil the what other thief has stolen...so both the parties have done these fake votes in there tenures..that is the only thing they have done properly as they never had any time to solve issues of the poor and masses of pakistan...
Dear Imran If the parliament is fake, then this judiciary is also fake, because the judiciary in which u filled a petition was restored by the mandate of this parliament, So the Whole System should be brought down, Do u know that???
There is no 'bogus' votes but in fact the votes from the 2007 voter list are not verified in the data available with the NADRA. So calling them Bogus Votes is not correct. I mean if there are bogus votes then which party has those bogus votes and why the alternate party tolerate it? So please stop calling this bogus votes.
What I find amusing is 38 million bogus votes were discovered and 37 million new voters lists were added at the same time. Coincidence or more of the clever fraud? If Judiciary were to work properly (which so far is sitting on the high horse and on the sideline) the "System" would cleanse itself from this National Fraud. This is the ongoing process. It cannot continue like present for next 5 more years and if this does for half decade more we can kiss democracy goodbye. The general conclusion would be by the end would be that Democracy works for the West for there system and not for us. The Americans need to get over with "One Size Fits All" philosophy.