Election petition: ‘ECP did not use ink approved by NADRA’

Out of the five samples sent by ECP, four were rejected

LAHORE:

National Database and Regulatory Authority Director General (warehouse) Muzafar Hussain Shah said on Saturday that the election commission of Pakistan had not used the ink sample approved by the authority for use in printing of ballot papers in 2013 general elections.

He said the ECP had sent five samples to the NADRA for its clearance. Of these, he said, four were rejected and one was approved with several reservations.

Shah was responding to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf counsel Anees Ali Hashmi during the hearing of the party’s petition over alleged rigging in the general election in NA-122 and PP-147 constituencies.

Judge Kazim Malik later adjourned the hearing till May 26 on the PTI counsel’s request that cross examination of NADRA Chairman Usman Mubeen should be put off till the availability of a NADRA report on verification of votes cast in the election in PP-147 (the NADRA is scheduled to submit the report on May 25).

Earlier, responding to a question by PML-N counsel Barrister Asjad Saeed, DG Shah said that the quality of ink could get affected due to hot weather. “It gets difficult to verify ballots stored in such conditions,” he said.

Talking to the media in front of the Punjab Election Commission’s Office, Ali Ayaz Sadiq, son of National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, said the PTI counsel was delaying the matter and was using one pretext after another for the purpose.

NA Speaker Sadiq had defeated PTI chief Imran Khan from the constituency.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2015.