October 05, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 4: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to complete the revision of the voters list by Oct 25 and put the updated list on its website.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who was heading the bench hearing identical petitions filed by PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) and Barrister Zafarullah Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), observed: “The new technology has simplified things, and with one click you can obtain every kind of information, so the ECP should place the information on its website.”

Challenging the computerised electoral rolls, the petitioners argued that inaccurate voters list would disenfranchise millions of people.

The court asked the Election Commission to ensure registration of all eligible voters.

Advocate Shahid Hamid, counsel for the PILDAT, said the electoral lists being updated by the ECP might contain errors because it had had been updated on the basis of electoral lists of 2002. “The lists may contain bogus voters and the names of dead people,” he added.

He suggested that electoral lists should be placed on the ECP website and political parties might be involved in the process of scrutinising the lists.

Deputy Attorney-General Nahida Mehboob Elahi, representing the federation, said the lists had also been updated on the information provided by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

Mohammad Bilal, counsel for the ECP, said that under fresh collection of data, 27 million voters had been added to the electoral lists and the total number of disenfranchised voters stood at 80 million.

He said about 99 per cent work on the process had been completed on the directives of the Supreme Court and the printing process was under way.

The chief justice raised the point that people attaining the age of 18 years by this time, were also entitled to be registered as voters.

He said that in the past, the UNDP had provided huge funds to the ECP, but that too went waste.

On the request of PILDAT’s counsel, the chief justice said the court was not disposing of the case unless printed copies were provided to the petitioners and they were satisfied with the new practice.

The court adjourned the hearing till last week of October.