The Lahore High Court (LHC) directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Saturday to publish data of all electoral candidates who have defaulted on their loans or taxes.
The LHC issued a six-page interim order pertaining to implementation of article 62, 63 of the constitution in which it took notice of discrepancies in the data sent by the Election Commission of Pakistan and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
According to the order, the State Bank of Pakistan pointed out that during the scrutiny process it found that more than 500 candidates or their immediate family members were loan defaulters.
The court ordered FBR to include a column of defaulters in its data sheets and publish all details regarding defaults on its website for a period of three weeks.
LHC took notice of the fact that ECP sent details about 24,094 candidates while NAB sent details of about 23,599 candidates. The court also directed relevant authorities to present details by April 15 regarding default in payment of dues owed by candidates to WAPDA, PTCL, SNGPL and WASA.
The court also directed ECP to get details from Cooperative Department about candidates who were defaulters.
