The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday called for a vote verification in the NA-110 constituency from which Defence Minister Khawaja Asif was elected.
A three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali directed NADRA to complete the verification of thumb impressions within three months. The order came during the hearing of a plea filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf candidate Usman Dar regarding rigging in NA-110 during the May 2013 general elections.
The Election Commission of Pakistan has been directed to provide the whole record related to counter files and ballot papers to NADRA for verification.
A petition was earlier taken up by the apex court seeking “verification of thumb impressions” in some constituencies won by key PML-N politicians in the May 2013 general elections.
The petition was filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan who alleged massive fraud in the general elections and called for the verification of voters’ thumb impressions. “Our stance is that there were massive fake votes in the May 11 elections and we have chosen these four constituencies for verification of thumb impressions as a test case,” said the PTI counsel. He said that his party will decide which other constituencies it has to challenge after the court’s decision on this petition. “We were raising the issue of bogus votes from day one and now the interior minister himself admitted that there are 60,000 to 70,000 bogus votes in every constituency. These should be verified,” he had maintained.
In December 2013, the top court admitted miscellaneous petitions seeking the verification of thumb impressions in four constituencies for preliminary hearing after Imran’s attorney Hamid Khan shot down objections raised by the Supreme Court registrar against his client’s petition. The petition filed by Imran in June that year was returned by the registrar’s office and the petitioner was asked to approach another forum for this purpose.
National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was elected on NA-122; Defence Minister Khawaja Asif won from NA-110; Railway Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique defeated PTI’s Hamid Khan in NA-125 and Sadiq Baloch outvoted PTI’s Secretary General Jahangir Tareen in NA-154.
