CJP says SC will ensure free and fair polls

–CJP Nisar says will swap provincial bureaucracies before general elections to ensure transparency

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Monday said that the Supreme Court (SC) will ensure free and fair elections by shifting all the bureaucracy from one province to another before the elections.

He also commented on the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government’s expenditure on advertisements, saying that they have spent Rs 1.63 billion on media advertisements in the last five years besides spending Rs 20.4 million in the last three months.

“Rs 1.64 billion were given between 1st January and 28th February,” said the KP information secretary in response.

“Action will be taken if any misstatement is seen and the KP government will be personally responsible for any misstatement,” stated the CJP.

He added that the court has multiple sources of information therefore it has requested details of every ad published in both the print and electronic media during the past year.

The court then ordered the KP information secretary to take an oath to testify that pictures of the PTI chairman and KP Chief Minister (CM) Pervez Khattak were not published anywhere.

The CJP said that no political campaigns will be accepted and if the government wishes to make an advertisement then they should spend their personal funds.

“Use your personal funds if you want to promote yourself. We have to decide about the ones from whom the money is to be recovered,” he said.

“Our print and electronic media people have not received salaries for the past three months,” he noted and added that, “Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif had promised to deposit Rs 5.5 million.”

Speaking about the advertisements in Sindh, he said that: “Benazir Bhutto, Bilawal Bhutto and the Sindh CM’s picture should not appear in ads. Benazir is a martyr and she is respectable to us.”

Recommendations have been sought from the respondents on Tuesday.