Form 15 missing from thousands of vote bags

District judges report widespread irregularities in 2013 election process

ISLAMABAD:

Form 15, which contains details of use of ballot papers, are missing from thousands of vote bags opened for an inquiry into allegations of widespread rigging in the 2013 general elections, according to a summary of reports submitted by the returning officers to a three-judge commission.

The returning officer and presiding officer in each polling station of all constituencies are bound to put one copy of Form 15 in the vote bags after the electoral process.

On May 27, the judicial commission, headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk, had ordered opening of the vote bags to obtain records regarding the use of ballot papers. The panel had assigned the task to district judges of the respective districts to obtain copies of Form 15 by June 8.

The panel has received reports from the district judges of 169 constituencies of the National Assembly, 211 constituencies of the Punjab Assembly, 59 constituencies of the Sindh Assembly, 73 constituencies of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly and 20 constituencies of the Balochistan Assembly, The Express Tribune has learnt.

According to the summary of the reports, out of 44,339 polling stations scrutinised in 169 National Assembly constituencies, bags from 14,641 polling stations have been found to be without Form 15.

Around 3,449 vote bags were found to have already been opened with their seals broken while 260 vote bags have been reported missing altogether.

The forms were found to be missing in bags checked in different national and provincial constituencies of K-P and Punjab’s Sargodha, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Nankana and Multan districts.

Talking to The Express Tribune, PTI’s taskforce chief Ishaq Khakwani termed the report regarding Form 15 ‘shocking’. “Why is the record regarding the use of ballot papers missing?” He added that the inquiry commission should fix responsibility for violation of law during the election process.



Seven ROs summoned

During its proceedings on Tuesday, the three-judge panel summoned seven ROs on Wednesday (today) over their alleged involvement in ‘systematic rigging’.

The commission called the judicial officers along with any record regarding the issuance of notices or information of the consolidation of the election results on the allegations made by the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).

The ROs summoned are Amir Habib, who presided the NA-134 constituency, Rafaqat Ali Qamar of NA-140, Ejaz Hussain Awan from NA-142, Arshad Hussain from NA-164, Imtiaz Hussain of PP-61, Mohammad Qasim Khan from PP-109 and Qamar Ijaz of PP-215.

During the hearing, PML-Q counsel Dr Khalid Ranjha brought seven witnesses before the judges to establish the ROs did not issue mandatory notices to the contesting candidates under Section 39 of the Representatives of People’s Act 1976. He alleged the ROs conducted the consolidation proceedings in the absence of candidates or their election agents.

Jamaat-e-Islami also filed the names of five witnesses – Raja Arif Sultan Minhas, Asadullah Bhutto, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti from Karachi, and Sahibzada Haroon Rashid and Mohammad Saeed from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

On behalf of Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), Advocate Hashmat Habib submitted a list of 55 names. The judges, however, said they could not summon all the witnesses and asked the counsel to only recommend the names of relevant persons.

The MQM-H counsel then requested the commission to summon former Sindh election commissioner SM Tariq Qadri and MQM-H leader Aftab Ahmed. Accepting the request, the panel also summoned them on Wednesday.


Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2015.