Explain yourself: High court asks election tribunal about bogus votes

Barrister Nasim said MQM candidate requested tribunal to show the entire 92,731 votes or 63,496 unverifiable votes.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court issued notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the Election Tribunal and others on Friday on a petition seeking authentication of more than 92,000 votes cast in the provincial assembly constituency PS-114.

Headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, the bench also restrained the election tribunal from passing any order on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) plea against the victory of Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz's Irfanullah Marwat.

Abdul Rauf Siddiqui, who had lost the PS-114 seat, had challenged Marwat's victory. He recalled that, on his petition, the election tribunal had ordered the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to verify the thumb impressions of the voters to unearth any rigging.

He said that NADRA had confirmed that, out of a total of 92,731 votes polled in the constituency, 29,255 were bogus and 63,469 could not be verified because of the bad quality of thumbprints.

Barrister Farogh Nasim said the MQM candidate requested the tribunal to show either the entire 92,731 votes or the 63,496 unverifiable votes to conclude the proceedings. The tribunal, however, rejected his request on December 12, 2013 without providing a hearing opportunity or a written order. He asked the court direct the tribunal to establish the authentication of the votes polled in the constituency.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2014.