PESHAWAR: A single-member election appellate tribunal on Thursday rejected an appeal against the candidature of adviser to the prime minister on finance Shaukat Tarin for the Senate by-election and declared his nomination papers legally acceptable.

Justice Syed M Attique Shah pronounced a short order for the purpose after hearing the arguments of lawyers for both appellant Dr Shaukat Jamal Amirzadah, who is also an election candidate, and Mr Tarin.

The appellant had requested the court to declare the nomination papers of Mr Tarin as invalid as he was not a resident of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and his vote was illegally transferred here.

The appellant, who is nominee of the Awami National Party, had filed the appeal against the acceptance of Tarin’s nomination papers by the returning officer on Dec 6, and requested the tribunal to reject that decision.

Polling will take place on Dec 20 in PA building

The Senate seat had fallen vacant following the resignation of PTI Senator Ayub Afridi.

Provincial Election Commissioner Sharifullah is the returning officer for the by-election for which polling will take place on Dec 20 here in the provincial assembly’s building here.

The Election Commission of Pakistan will publish the revised list of the candidates on Dec 11. The candidates can withdraw nominations by Dec 13.

The appellant’s counsel said under Article 62 (1) (C) of the Constitution, a candidate contesting for a seat from a particular province should be registered as a voter in that province.

He said Mr Tarin was neither a registered voter of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nor was he a resident of Mardan district, where he had transferred his vote to.

The lawyer added that Mr Tarin was a permanent resident of Karachi and that his vote was illegally transferred to Mardan as there was a bar on the transfer of vote after the announcement of schedule for the first phase of the local body polls in 17 districts of the province, including Mardan.

He said coincidentally, the Senate by-election and local government elections had overlapped, so due to the announcement of local government elections through a notification on Nov 4, no changes could be made to the electoral rolls under the law, but the vote of Mr Tarin was transferred on Nov 16.

The counsel contended that Section 110(5) of the Elections Act, 2017, explicitly declared that every nomination paper should be accompanied by a certified copy of the relevant extract from the electoral rolls in which the name of the person nominated was enrolled. He also said Mr Tarin hadn’t attached that certified copy along with his nomination papers.

However, Mr Tarin’s lawyer Ali Gohar Durrani saidunder Section 112 of the Elections Act, 2017, the returning officer couldn’t examine the correctness or validity of entries to electoral rolls and so was the case with the tribunal.

Rejecting the appellant’s objection, he said his client had submitted his voter certificate, which was itself considered to be an extract of the electoral rolls.

The counsel said any printout signed by the ECP had the status of a certified copy.

He claimed that the vote of his client was validly transferred to the province much before the announcement of election schedule and once his name appeared in the electoral rolls, the tribunal couldn’t declare it invalid.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2021