ISLAMABAD: More than a year after the general elections, over 170 post-poll petitions are still pending with the election tribunals whose year-long term will expire at the end of this month.

The contracts of the presiding officers of the tribunals formed by the Election Commission will expire on April 30.

The law requires the election tribunals to decide the cases within 120 days.

This time, the tribunals comprised retired judges who were to hear the cases on a daily basis without any routine judicial workload.

Only one of them has so far decided all the cases assigned to him. The tribunal in Dera Ismail Khan has disposed of all the 13 petitions referred to it by the ECP and is now hearing some of the petitions filed with the tribunal in Peshawar and transferred to it.

All the tribunals have been granting adjournments for more than seven days apparently in violation of an amendment made to the Representation of the People Act.

The tribunal in Lahore alone has granted more than 300 adjournments. An official of the ECP said decisions in bulk were expected to be announced during the current month. He said hearings of dozens of cases had been completed after recording the evidence and decisions in them were expected to be announced soon.

He, however, conceded that even if it was done, over 100 of the total 384 petitions referred to the tribunals by the ECP would remain undecided, warranting an extension in their term.

The ECP received 409 petitions after the polling, of which 25 were dismissed during scrutiny and 384 were referred to the tribunals. One petition was filed directly with a tribunal.

The Lahore tribunal received 56 petitions, highlighting a high prevalence of result disputes in the city and adjoining districts. The Peshawar tribunal received 40 petitions, followed by Faisalabad with 39.

Although disputes in Karachi echoed considerably in the media, the tribunal there received 30 petitions.

The ECP started referring the petitions to the tribunals in June last year. As there is no time limit for the ECP to forward the petitions to tribunals or dismiss them, some cases remain pending with it for more than 120 days.

According to official record, the Lahore tribunal received at least two petitions on Jan 29.

Most of the petitions (99) were filed by independent candidates. PML-N members filed a total of 66 petitions, followed by PTI (58), PPP (50), JUI-F (27), PML-F (18), JI (13), PML-Q (10), ANP and BNP (7 each), and JUI- N (5).

More than one-third of the petitions (138) had been filed against returned candidates of the PML-N. PPP’s winning candidates faced 49 petitions, PTI 30 and JUI-F 19, while 78 petitions were against independent candidates who won the elections.