ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk withdrew himself on Monday from a court bench hearing cases relating to lack of implementation of its June 8, 2012, judgment on electoral reforms as well as concerns raised by PTI chief Imran Khan on the 2013 poll results in four constituencies of Punjab.

The chief justice decided to recuse from the bench with an observation that since he was officiating as the acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and on his instructions two reports before the Supreme Court were furnished in connection with the Workers’ Party case on electoral reforms and thumb verification of voters in four constituencies on March as well as June 2014, therefore, he would not like to sit as s member of the bench hearing the same case.

The case now has been re-listed for Nov 10 before the court in which the chief justice would not be a member of the bench.

The judgment popularly known as Workers’ Party case had worked out comprehensive and wide-ranging criteria aimed at discouraging extravagance, show of wealth, power and pageantry in elections.

Likewise, Imran Khan, through PTI’s Additional Secretary Saifullah Niazi had sought thumb verification and recount of votes in four constituencies of Punjab all won by PML-N leaders. The constituencies were NA-125, Lahore, from where Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq won, NA-154, Lodhran, won by Siddiq Khan Baloch; NA-110, Sialkot, won by Defence and Water and Power Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif; and NA-122, Lahore, won by National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq.

In its last report, the ECP had stated that the entire election scheme for 2013 general election had been framed by returning officers (ROs) and that the introduction of computerised balloting system for future elections was not possible until the parliament made necessary legislation about it.

The report had said that the parliament was the ultimate authority to decide about computerised balloting system since several steps were needed to be taken before the commission could implement use of electronic voting machines (EVMs) instead of commonly used system of ballot boxes and ballot papers.

In one report, the ECP had admitted that the polling time was extended for an hour to 6:00 pm from 5:00 pm by then Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim on the advice of ECP Punjab Member Justice retired Riaz Kiani by phone.

Explaining further, the report said that Punjab Member of the ECP during a visit to several polling stations in NA-125, Lahore, had realised that if the polling was stopped at normal 5:00pm a large number of voters would not be able to vote as he had seen a large number of voters at a polling station.

Consequently, the ECP Punjab Member contacted the CEC by phone and requested him to issue orders for extending the polling time till 6:00 pm. After a while the CEC rang back to inform the Punjab Member that he had ordered the ECP Secretary in Islamabad to extend the polling by one hour and necessary instructions had been given to ROs for the purpose.

The report submitted that candidates who lost in constituencies of NA-110, NA-122, NA-125 and NA-154 had already filed separate election petitions which were now pending adjudication with respective election tribunals and the ECP had no role to play in the matter.

The report had also explained that technology of verification of the thumb impression was available with Nadra and if any election tribunal orders verification, it can only be done by Nadra because the ECP had no role to play with regard to verification of thumb impression of voters.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2014