ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to make public details of income, expenses and taxes mentioned by candidates in their nomination papers and invite objections against any possible concealment of facts.

A meeting of the ECP, presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim here on Wednesday, finalised modalities and mechanism for electronic scrutiny of declarations made by candidates in nomination papers.

SBP Governor Yaseen Anwar, FBR Chairman Ali Arshad Hakeem, NAB Director General (Awareness and Prevention) Brig (retd) Mussadiq Abbasi, Nadra Chairman Tariq Malik and Director Intelligence and Investigation, Inland Revenue, FBR Tanveer Malik also attended the meeting.

An official told Dawn that the candidates who submitted false declarations about their wealth and assets would be disqualified even after the expiry of period for scrutiny of nomination papers.

He said the authorities concerned agreed in principle to provide information required by the ECP.

The SBP governor informed the meeting that he had sought details of loan defaulters from banks by Monday. Returning officers would be provided online access to the data about defaulters, he added.

The governor said the central bank would provide the data within a week and if it was to be gathered from other banks it would take a couple of weeks.

The FBR chairman said a comprehensive list of tax defaulters would be provided to the commission within a week. He asked the ECP to define parameters of tax defaulters so that the FBR could share specific information with it.

The NAB representative assured the ECP that information about convicted candidates would be provided to it. He informed the meeting that the conviction remained there even after an accused entered a plea bargain with NAB.

Under the rules, beneficiaries of plea bargain are not qualified to contest elections.

A committee, headed by ECP Director General (Elections) Sher Afgan, was constituted to draft standard operating procedures to define responsibilities of officials. The committee will have representatives from the FBR, SBP, NAB and Nadra.

The meeting decided that information provided by candidates would be verified through the departments concerned.

Nomination forms will be placed on ECP’s website.

Some FBR officers will be placed at the disposal of ECP to scrutinise entries in nomination forms related to tax defaults and the FBR will provide details about tax defaulters to returning officers concerned.

NAB will provide lists of convicts and details of plea bargains under the NAB Ordinance.

The SBP will provide details of bank defaulters to returning officers along with the system to be adopted for the purpose.

A meeting will be held with the heads of departments concerned to identify candidates who have not paid utility bills in excess of Rs10,000 for over six months at the time of filing of nomination papers.

Earlier, the chief election commissioner told the meeting that the ECP needed cooperation of all departments to ensure that the candidates fulfilled legal requirements to become a lawmaker.

He said the ECP wanted to let the general public know credentials of candidates to enable them to choose their best representatives.

It was the third meeting of the ECP in a row skipped by Justice (retd) Roshan Essani, member of the commission from Sindh.