PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday reserved judgment on 20 petitions of contesting candidates against the re-polling ordered by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) at polling stations of their respective wards in the province.

The verdict will be announced tomorrow (Friday).

Also, the bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Qaiser Rasheed Khan adjourned hearing into three other petitions on the local body elections to July 9 (Thursday).

Court had earlier stayed electoral exercise slated to happen on July 5

One of the three petitions is filed by an MPA of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Zahid Durrani, requesting to declare the May 30 local government elections void on account of massive rigging and mismanagement and to order fresh elections.

He also requested the court that as interim relief, the newly elected councilors could be restrained from taking oaths and the elections of nazims and naib nazims of districts and tehsils councils may also be stopped.

The impugned notification was issued by the ECP on June 25 and through it the commission had announced re-polling in 356 polling stations in 14 districts of the province on July 5.

However, a bench of the high court had on July 3 suspended the said notification and stayed the scheduled re-polling.

During previous hearing, the bench had fixed the next hearing for July 14.

The cases were fixed for hearing on Wednesday due to sensitivity and urgency of the issue.

The petitioners have challenged the re-polling on different grounds.

Some petitioners claimed that notification of their winning the polls had already been issued following which the ECP had no authority to order re-polling in the polling stations in their wards.

Some other candidates have filed petition merely for delaying the re-polling stating that in the month of Ramazan and due to scorching heat the voters’ turnout would be nominal and therefore, re-polling should not be held on July 5.

Shumail Ahmad Butt, lawyer for the ECP, said the petitions were not maintainable before the high court. He contended that under Section 87 of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act 2013 and Rule 44 of the Local Councils (Conduct of Elections) Rules 2013, no election could be called in questions by the candidate except through an election petition before an election tribunal.

He added that factual controversies were involved in cases the petitioners should move the election tribunals.

Butt contended that the main issue before the court was the interpretation of Rule 28 of the Local Councils Rules, which were related to stoppage or interruption in polling. He added that under the said rule the ECP was fully empowered to fix fresh date for re-polling at polling stations where disturbance had taken place.

Advocates Naveed Akhtar, Aamir Jawed, Amjid Ali, Khushdil Khan, Arshad Jamal Qureshi, Qazi Zakiuddin, Syed Kausar Ali, Muazam Butt and other lawyers appeared for the petitioners.

Lawyer of petitioner Nawaz Ali Khan contended that his client was declared successful from a ward of district council Swabi by the returning officer.

He said the returning officer after consolidation of results declared that his client had secured 1651 votes against 1372 votes of his rival candidate Gohar Taj.

The lawyer said at one of the women polling stations, only nine votes were cast and the presiding officer declared that as elders of the area had entered into an agreement and therefore, more polling would not take place.

He added that now the ECP had announced re-polling at the said polling station.

The petitioners’ lawyers contended that once the ECP issued notification declaring the petitioners as returned candidates from a particular ward, it had no powers to order re-polling in any of the polling stations in the respective wards.

They said under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, the ECP had no authority to order fresh polling at a polling station.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2015

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