In another setback to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N), the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday de-seated its Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) of Sindh Masroor Ahmad Jatoi and ordered re-election in PS-23 Naushahro Feroze.
The three-member SC bench comprising Justice Saqib Nisar, Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Tariq Pervez set aside the order of Election Tribunal, Sukkur which had declared the election of PML-N’s Masroor Khan Jatoi as legal. The runner-up candidate in May 2013 general election had challenged the tribunal’s verdict.
Masroor Jatoi had won the May 22, 2013 general election with a difference of 1,611 votes by obtaining 30,674 votes against 29,063 by Feroze Ahmed Jamali.
The petitioner adopted the stance that the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) had declared most of the votes cast in the constituency ‘fake’.
He challenged the election results primarily on the grounds that the respondent had cast a large number of bogus votes, who manipulated the result in connivance with the election staff.
He claimed the returning officers and the election staff violated the provisions of Sections 33, 38 and 39 of the Act.
It may be mentioned that during the course of the proceedings before the Election Tribunal, Sukkur, the appellant had moved an application for the examination and verification of the counterfoils of 19 polling stations with the object to prove that certain votes cast were not as per the mandate of Section 33 and, therefore, such votes be excluded from the count.
Pursuant to the above, the tribunal sought the verification of the counterfoils of the said polling stations from NADRA and as per its report 2,417 used counterfoils were declared as invalid, which either contained CNIC (Computerized National Identity Card) numbers, which were not issued by NADRA or which did not bear any CNIC number whatsoever. Further, 61 used counterfoils were held to be without fingerprints or thumb impressions.
In order to controvert the arguments of the learned counsel for the appellant, counsel for the respondent submitted that the NADRA report was only to the extent of verification of thumb impressions of 19 polling stations, and there were no ‘out of constituency’ votes which suggests that there was no bogus voting.
The apex court ordered: “The ECP is required to hold fresh elections in the said constituency in accordance with law.”