Cast your vote: Election tribunal declares PS-22 election as void

Arif Jatoi claims 139 votes cast in his favour were stolen from ballot bags

KARACHI: The election tribunal on Saturday declared the election of Pakistan Peoples Party's candidate for PS-22 from district Naushero Feroze-IV as void for stealing 139 votes from the ballot bags in the constituency.

The tribunal, headed by a former Sindh High Court judge, Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani, gave a ruling on a petition challenging the results of the PS-22 seat won by Abdul Sattar Rajpar.

Arif Jatoi, a candidate backed by the National Peoples Party, which has merged with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, lost last May's general election to the rival PPP candidate by a narrow margin of 13 votes.

Subsequently, he challenged the results before the tribunal on the ground that 139 valid votes in his favour were stolen from the ballot bags at polling station No. 90 of the constituency.

He claimed that the interim election results sent by the returning officer of the constituency to the Election Commission of Pakistan had shown the votes in his favour at 30,111, while 29,919 ballots were cast in favour of Abdul Sattar Rajpar and 5,345 in favour of the third candidate - Abdul Waheed Abbasi.

Later, on Rajpar's application for recounting the votes, the returning officer (RO) issued the consolidated results showing that the petitioner had 30,067 votes and Rajpar had at 30,124.

The RO once again declared PPP candidate as winner with a margin of 13 votes.

Jatoi had argued that 139 votes which were cast in his favour were stolen from the ballot bags at polling station No. 90 before the recounting by the district returning officer, which was investigated by the DRO. Therefore, the election had been materially affected.

The petitioner pleaded to the tribunal to declare the election as void and subsequently declare him as returned candidate under Section 69 of the Representation of Peoples Act 1976.

Ruling

From the arguments made by the lawyers for both parties the tribunal drew a conclusion.

It observed: "Due to the findings of issue No. 6 that 139 valid ballot papers in favour of the petitioner were missing from the polling bags of Polling Station No. 90 that remained unexamined by the DRO after completion of recounting held in terms of directions of the ECP and on account of very narrow margin of 13 votes with which the returned candidate was notified as such."

It further read: "Therefore, the tribunal is satisfied that the result of the election has been materially affected within the contemplation of Section 70(a) of the Act and therefore the election is declared as a whole void. Consequently, the petition is allowed with costs."

It directed the office to communicate this order to the ECP.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2014.