ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court asked the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday to come up with a reply on a plea raised by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf seeking access to its data server for preparing voter lists for coming intra-party elections.

The directive was issued by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar during the hearing of an appeal by the PTI’s Chief Election Commissioner Tasneem Noorani against last year’s Islamabad High Court order to reject the plea.

Also read:PTI petitions for access to ECP servers

Advocate Hamid Khan, representing the petitioner, told the court that the PTI election commission had decided to register party members through their mobile phones on ‘one phone one vote’ basis by asking them to submit their names and National Identity Card numbers.

He asked the court to order the ECP to grant access to its server for data verification of party members and provide a soft copy of voter details, available through “8300” SMS service.

He said that the process of getting data of each member from “8300” SMS service was cumbersome and time-consuming beca­use SMS modems had speed limitations.

“Therefore access to the service en masse is the only solution but our requests have been turned down,” he said.

The petition says that the PTI is the only political party in the country which conducts intra-party elections after every four years as required under Article 11 of the Political Parties Order 2002.

The petition contends that all political parties and their members have a right to seek information of public importance from any constitutional body, including the ECP, under Article 19-A of the Constitution.

After hearing arguments of counsel, the court directed the ECP to file a concise statement on the matter in three weeks.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2016