ECP files report on Daska stations where results were ‘altered’
ISLAMABAD: A day ahead of scheduled hearing on an appeal filed against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision of Feb 25 to conduct fresh by-election in NA-75, Sialkot (Daska tehsil) constituency, the ECP on Thursday submitted to the Supreme Court a 44-page report, attached to a chart of polling stations where results were possibly altered.
The report mainly consists of the chart of polling stations; details of the incoming and outgoing calls from Dec 21, 2020 to Feb 19, 2021 of, among others, Chief Secretary of Punjab, Inspector General of Punjab Police, City Police Officer and District Police Officer of Sialkot; the abstracts of the 360 polling stations in the constituency; and a certificate issued by the District Election Commissioner for Narowal, who was also the returning officer in Daska tehsil when polling was last held there.
At the last hearing on March 16, a three-judge Supreme Court bench had ordered the ECP to furnish the map of the constituency, labelling the polling stations where wrongs were reportedly committed, along with a chart explaining the said labels.
The court had taken up an appeal moved by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Ali Asjad Malhi challenging the ECP’s decision of ordering re-polling in the constituency. On Feb 25, the ECP had ordered re-polling on March 18 in the entire NA-75 Daska constituency after suspicions that the results might have been falsified there.
The ECP gave the decision on an application filed by Pakistan Muslim League-N candidate Syeda Nosheen Iftikhar. Later, the ECP said that fresh by-election would be held on April 10.
At the last hearing, the apex court held that the benchmarks laid down by the law for Election Tribunal to annul an election and order re-polling might not strictly apply to the ECP under Section 9 of the Elections Act without suitable modification.
In such circumstances, the court would like to examine whether the ECP’s Feb 25 decision — namely, its allegedly excessive response to the prevailing situation in Daska — was within its jurisdictional parameters or not.
The court held that it had not been assisted in finding the transgressions on the polling day that could constitute grave illegalities or violations calling for a fresh, rather than a partial re-polling, and in what situations would non-pervasiveness of the illegalities or violations committed on polling day still attract the same result.
Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2021