ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has started issuing nomination forms for the presidential election.

An official of the ECP said on Wednesday that the forms could be obtained from the commission’s headquarters, provincial election commissioners and registrars of the high courts on payment of Rs100.

He said that under the Presidential Election Rules of 1988, each nomination paper has to be accompanied by an attested copy of an extract from the electoral roll in which the person nominated was enrolled as a voter and the attested copies of the identity cards of the proposer and the seconder.

The nomination form should be submitted by the candidate, his proposer or seconder or an agent authorised by the candidate to the presiding officer, who would assign each paper a serial number and acknowledge the receipt in writing, specifying the date and time of receipt.

The presiding officer shall inform the person presenting the nomination paper of the date, time and place fixed for scrutiny and mention it in the receipt. The presiding officers will forward the nomination papers to the returning officer.

The returning officer shall give reasonable opportunity to each candidate, his proposer, seconder or authorised agent for examining the nomination papers forwarded to him by the presiding officers. The returning officer shall, in the presence of persons attending the scrutiny, examine the nomination papers and decide on any objection.

The returning officer may, either on his own or on any objection, conduct an inquiry and reject a nomination paper if the proposer or seconder is not a voter, the signature of the proposer or the seconder is not genuine, the nomination was not filed before noon on the date fixed or if the same person had proposed or seconded the paper of more than one candidate.

The rejection of a nomination paper shall not invalidate the nomination of a candidate by any other valid nomination paper. The returning officer shall not reject a nomination paper on the ground of a defect which is not of a substantial nature and may allow such defect to be immediately remedied.

The returning officer shall record on each nomination paper his decision of either accepting or rejecting it and shall, in the case of rejection, record a brief statement of reasons for it.