KARACHI: After an inordinate delay, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notified the victory of Jamaat-i-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rahman on Monday from a provincial assembly constituency in the city.

Last week, the Sindh High Court had issued notices to the ECP and others on a petition filed by one of the aspirants from the constituency, seeking directive for the ECP to issue the notification about returned candidate from PS-129 (Karachi, Central-VIII).

The notification issued by the ECP said that in pursuance of Section 98(1) of the Election Act, 2017 the ECP hereby published the name of Naeem-ur-Rehman Khan as returned candidate from PS-129.

It further stated that Hafiz Naeem had secured highest votes i.e. 26,296, followed by Maaz Mukaddam of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (20,608), PPP’s Asad Hanif (15,014) and PTI-backed independent Saif Bari secured 11,357 votes.

Officials say notification was issued after Hafiz Naeem and all JI candidates submitted their returns of election expenses; notification to enable PTI-backed candidate to challenge result before tribunal

According to Section 98 (1) of the Election Act 2017, on receipt of the final consolidated result from the returning officer, the commission shall, within 14 days from the date of the polling day, publish in the official gazette the name of the winning candidate.

However, Section 98(3) of electoral law also said that every returned candidate shall within 10 days from the election submit a return of election expenses and those who lost the election shall submit the same within 30 days.

ECP officials told Dawn that all JI candidates, including Hafiz Naeem, had submitted their statements of election expenses within the 30-day period in compliance with the Election Act 2017.

It may be noted that a few days after the Feb 8 general elections, Hafiz Naeem had announced that he would not accept the victory as the PA seat in question was actually won by the PTI-backed candidate and not him.

On March 28, the SHC had put the ECP and other respondents on notice for April 9 on the petition of the PTI-backed aspirant with direction to file comments.

The petitioner argued that the ECP through the provisional result had declared Hafiz Naeem as returned candidate from the constituency, but did not issue a notification.

He submitted that a per Form-45s he had won the election and Hafiz Naeem had himself publicly admitted this fact.

He maintained that JI city chief might not submit a return of election expenses to the ECP.

The petitioner sought a directive for the ECP to issue the notification about the returned candidate so that he could challenge it before an election tribunal.

SHC disposes of JI aspirants’ pleas against ECP

The Sindh High Court on Monday disposed of contempt applications filed by five aspirants of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) against election watchdog for not deciding their complaints against provisional results of five Sindh Assembly seats from the city.

Citing the Election Commission of Pakistan, chief election commissioner and others as alleged contemnors, JI aspirants in their contempt applications submitted that they had not complied with the SHC order passed on in February regarding election complaints of applicants.

When the two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi took up the matter for hearing on Monday, a deputy attorney general (DAG) submitted that the ECP had passed short orders on such complaints and subsequently, detailed reasons had also been communicated to the petitioners and, therefore, such applications had become infructuous.

“Prima facie, it appears that for the aforesaid reasons, learned counsel for petitioners have not come forward to pursue the contempt applications, which are accordingly disposed of in view of statement of learned DAG”, it added.

The petitioners, Jawaid Mukati, Mohammad Akbar, Mohammad Ahmed, Nusratullah and Syed Wajih Hassan submitted that in February, the SHC had disposed of their petitions against provisional results of these constituencies and had ordered ECP to decide the petitioners’ complaints through speaking orders before Feb 22, but the same had not been complied with as detailed orders were still awaited.

Earlier, Junaid Mukati challenged the victory of Mohammad Daniyal from PS-104, Mohammad Akbar impugned the victory of Abdul Waseem from PS-123, Mohammad Ahmed filed a petition against returned candidate Abdul Basit from PS-124, Nusratullah approached the tribunal to get Mohammad Iftikhar Alam de-seated from PS-126 and Syed Wajih Hasan challenged the victory of Taha Ahmed Khan from PS-128.

The petitioners had submitted that as per Form-45s, they had easily won the constituencies in question, but the results were fraudulently changed and the petitioners were shown runner-ups in the impugned From-47s.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2024