HYDERABAD: Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad circuit bench comprising Justice Azizur Rehman and Justice Mohammad Saleem Jessar on Monday adjourned Dr Sikandar Shoro’s petition against the results of PS-82 Jamshoro-III without fixing a date, ruling that its Aug 2 interim order that stayed notification of the results would continue.

The unofficial results show victory of the rival candidate, Malik Asad Sikandar of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), over the petitioner, Dr Sikandar Shoro, who contested as an independent candidate after failing to get a PPP ticket.

Advocate Salahuddin and Dr Shoro’s counsel Advocate Farogh Naseem both informed the bench that they were ready to argue in the case.

The bench told Malik Asad Sikandar’s counsel, Advocate Sala­h­uddin, that a special bench was to be formed to hear election-related petitions.

Malik Asad, Dr Shoro told to wait until formation of special bench

Advocate Salahuddin stated that he had also provided a copy of the counter-affidavit to Advocate Farogh Naseem. He pleaded that the notification of winning candidates was being issued on Tuesday (today) and if the bench’s stay order continued, his client’s constituency would remain unrepresented.

The court appeared not impressed by his contention. Jus­tice Azizur Rehman told him that they [bench] needed instruction to form a special bench for hearing these cases. The judge asked the counsel to either get the matter fixed after 10 days or wait for the formation of the special bench.

Additional Advocate General (AAG) Allah Bachayo Soomro filed a statement on behalf of the PS-82 returning officer (RO).

According to the RO, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had directed him to recount ballot papers as per the request of a petitioner if the margin of victory is less than five per cent of the total votes polled or they are 10,000, whichever is less, in accordance with the provision of Section 95 of the Elections Act, 2017.

The RO referred to the ECP directive that in case the consolidation proceedings were concluded, then recounting should not be undertaken. He stated that since the margin of victory [in this particular case] was more than five per cent and consolidation proceedings had already been completed, such intimation was given to the ECP.

In his counter-affidavit, Malik’s counsel questioned maintainability of Dr Shoro’s petition.

He said it pertained to election affairs and only an election petition could be filed. He said that Article 225 of the Constitution provided that it could only be heard by an election tribunal. He contended that the petitioner’s application was rightly dismissed on merit because his case did not fall within the ambit of Section 95(5) of the Elections Act, 2017.

He said that the points agitated in that application by petitioner and in the present petition were contradictory and the sole purpose of filing of this petition was to drag his client [in a dispute] unnecessarily.

He claimed that such tactics were being used to usurp the mandate of the voters of the constituency and to prevent the respondent from taking his rightful position in the house.

He said that the petitioner was present during the process of consolidation of result.

He said that in fact some human/arithmetical errors in the provisional consolidation were corrected in the final consolidation due to which votes of the petitioner increased to 36,315 from 36,012 votes. He said that the July 29 order had become infructuous and recounting could not be ordered after consolidation of results.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2018