PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday put the Election Commission of Pakistan on notice and sought its response to the pleas of seven independent election candidates from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, including four former lawmakers, against the non-provision of documents about poll results by the commission and the relevant returning officers.

A bench consisting of Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Shakeel Ahmad held a preliminary hearing into seven petitions of the candidates seeking the court’s orders for the ECP, Peshawar’s district returning officer, and returning officers to immediately provide them with attested copies of forms 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49 of their respective provincial assembly constituencies.

It fixed the next hearing for March 7.

The petitioners requested the court to declare illegal the respondents’ act of denying them attested copies of those forms carrying election results.

Independent candidates claim denial of poll result documents

They also sought the court’s orders for the provision of CCTV footage of the process to consolidate election results by the returning officers of their respective constituencies.

The petitioners include former provincial ministers Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra (PK-79) and Kamran Khan Bangash (PK-82), former deputy speaker of the KP Assembly Mahmood Jan (PK-72), former MNA Hameedul Haq, former district nazim Mohammad Asim (PK-78), and lawyers Ali Zaman (PK-73) and Malik Shahab (PK-75).

They claimed that as per Form 45 received by their polling agents from presiding officers of polling stations, they won the election by a large margin, but the returning officers manipulated the results and issued Form 47 (provisional poll results) that declared their rivals as winners.

Lawyers Shumail Ahmad Butt, Ali Gohar Durrani, and Ali Azim Afridi appeared for the petitioners and contended that the provisions of the Elections Act, 2017, were violated by the respondents as neither those forms were uploaded on the ECP’s website within 14 days of the polling as required by Section 95(10) of the law nor were they allowed the “public inspection” of election documents under Section 100 of the Act.

They said after the closure of the polling process on Feb 8, the votes were counted and a signed Form 45 was issued to the petitioners’ polling agents, clearly indicating that the petitioners had won the elections.

The counsel said following Form 45, their clients came for the result compilation for the provisional consolidation before the returning officer, however, entry was not allowed to them or their polling agents from 9pm on Feb 8 to 6am the next morning.

They said when entry was allowed to them, they were merely told that they had ended up not as returned candidates, as was the requirement of Form 45 results, but instead their votes were reduced and other candidates were declared as returned on the basis of some manipulated Form 45, which, despite the clear mandate of the Elections Act, 2027, had not been shared with the petitioners.

The lawyers said when the petitioners approached the ECP against that illegality, their petitions were rejected in short order, while no detailed reasoning was yet available. They stated that the ECP had directed the petitioners to approach the election tribunals.

They contended that they had written applications to the ROs, DRO, and also the district election commissioner, seeking attested copies of forms 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49. However, they added, the respondents had been shifting the burden on each other for the purpose.

The counsel wondered how the petitioners could approach election tribunals without having attested copies of the relevant election documents, especially Form 45.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2024