KARACHI, June 9: An election petitioner can succeed only on the merit of his own case and could not be given an advantage of the weakness of his opponent’s position, according to a Sindh High Court election tribunal.

Dismissing an election petition, moved by MMA candidate Mohammad Shabbir Abu Talib, against the election of MQM’s Dr Abdul Aziz Bantwa from the Sindh Assembly constituency PS-110 (Karachi-South-XXII), Justice Amir Hani Muslim, who constituted the tribunal, observed that the criterion laid down for proof of a fact in an election petition “is that of a criminal trial and the benefit of the doubt invariably goes to the returned candidate if the allegations of irregularities or corrupt practices are not proved”.

The order said: “It is an admitted position that the petitioner and his polling agents, who testified before the tribunal, did not approach either the returning officer or any other competent authority to complain against the alleged corrupt or illegal practices committed by the respondent and his workers in connivance with the election functionaries.

The petitioner could not name his polling agents who were alleged by him to have been denied entry to or thrown out of polling stations, least of all produce them as witnesses.

He had no explanation for his or his agents’ failure to file any complaints with any authority as irregularities were being committed. Not a single independent voter was produced as a witness to substantiate the allegations made in the petition.

“A petitioner is obliged, under Section 55 of the Representation of People Act, 1976, to state full particulars of corrupt and illegal practices or any other illegality committed during the process of election. The burden of proving the allegations is on the petitioner. Every ingredient of a corrupt practice must be affirmatively proved by evidence, direct or circumstantial. Where the evidence is wholly circumstantial, the tribunal must exclude all reasonable hypotheses of absence of irregularities before finding in favour of the allegations.’

Advocate Qazi Khalid Ali appeared for the respondent MPA and Advocate M. S. Qureshi for the petitioner.