KARACHI: An election tribunal of the Sindh High Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Shahbaz Sharif challenging the victory of federal Water Resources Minister Faisal Vawda from a National Assembly constituency in Karachi in the general election last year.

The tribunal ruled that the election petition did not meet verification requirements.

Shahbaz Sharif, who contested the election from NA-249 (Karachi West-III), had moved the election tribunal of the SHC last year against Mr Vawda, seeking nullification of the results and a recount in the entire constituency.

The plea did not meet verification requirements, says SHC tribunal

The PML-N leader urged the tribunal to void Faisal Vawda’s victory as just 723 votes separated him from the minister while the number of rejected votes stood at 2,684. Mr Vawda had bagged 35,349 votes while Shahbaz Sharif got 34,626.

The single-judge tribunal, headed by Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed, rejected two other identical petitions filed by Ms Nusrat Anwar and Saleheen against the winning candidates in two Karachi constituencies of the Sindh Assembly — Abbas Jafari from PS-128 and Malik Shahzad from PS-116.

The petitioners had filed miscellaneous applications for a recount on the ground that the winning margin was very thin while the PML-N leader had filed another application seeking forensic audit of thumb impressions on counterfoils to determine authenticity of the votes cast.

The winning candidates filed applications arguing that these petitions did not meet mandatory requirements of Section 144 (contents of petitions) of the Election Act 2017, and pleaded with the court to reject the petitions under Section 145 of the act.

Their counsel contended that verification of the petitions were not in consonance with order 6, rule 15, of CPC and cited some court rulings in support of their arguments.

The tribunal observed in its order that the text and manner of verification of the two petitions cried out for scrutiny in order to determine whether there had been compliance or not with the rules.

The tribunal further noted that Shahbaz Sharif’s petition had no biometric verification or reference to his CNIC and the verification appearing at the end of the petition was based on affirmation before an oath commissioner upon identification through counsel.

Likewise, Nusrat Anwar’s petition challenging Abbas Jafari’s victory in PS-128 did not carry verification at the end of the petition and instead, a separate affidavit was attached, the tribunal observed.

“As can be seen, neither of the verifications contains a reference to the numbered paragraphs of the petition so as to specify what is being verified on personal knowledge and what is being verified upon information received and believed to be true,” the judgement said.

“In view of the foregoing, it is apparent that the objections as to the verifications of EP-7 and EP-30 [filed by Mr Sharif] are borne out. As such CMA Nos. 69/2019 and 117/2019 [filed by returned candidates] are allowed, with the result that EP-7 and EP-30 stand rejected, with other applications being dismissed as having become infructuous,” the tribunal concluded.

The third petition was filed against the victory of PTI MPA Shahzad Awan. It was rejected on the ground that the petitioner had filed the application after the start of validation proceedings.

The tribunal further said the petitioner had alleged that the PTI MPA did not disclose in his nomination papers that FIRs were pending against him and made no mention of a motor vehicle registered in his name. He violated Article 62(1) of the constitution.

“All of these allegations raised by the petitioner in relation to the electoral process and the disqualification of respondent are yet to be adjudicated upon, and I am of the opinion that complete recount in preparation of Section 95(5) is not merited at this stage,” the tribunal ruled.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2019