Election probe: Final arguments in NA 122 rigging case on June 22

LAHORE:

Election Tribunal Judge Kazim Ali Malik has sought final arguments on June 22 on a petition by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan challenging National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq’s victory in the 2013 general elections. 

On Friday, counsel for the PTI Advocate Anees Ali Hashmi said thousands of ballots cast in the constituency had either been found invalid, or had wrong CNIC numbers mentioned in counterfoils. He said in other cases, some of the digits of CNIC numbers on the counterfoils were missing. “How can such votes be considered valid?”

In previous proceedings, Hashmi had argued that several discrepancies had been pointed out during the verification of counterfoils. He said the reports had established that the election commission’s records were not correct. He said there was discrepancy in the number of ballot papers counted by the returning officers and the election commission. The counsel had said that counterfoils carrying incorrect CNIC numbers represented invalid votes. Earlier, the tribunal had reserved its ruling on a supplementary report submitted to it by the NADRA stating that based on forensic examination of election material 5,898 (96.7 per cent) of the 6,123 votes, should be deemed valid.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2015.