ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday sought reply from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on petitions filed by three unsuccessful candidates backed by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) against the election results.

Amir Mughal, Shuaib Shaheen and Mohammad Ali Bukhari challenged the results of their constituencies of NA-46, NA-47 and NA-48.

Interestingly, the notification about the final result dated Feb 11 was issued on Feb 12 while the ECP ordered status quo on Feb 11. In his petition, Shaheen contended that the ECP stopped the consolidation of the result for his constituency on Feb 11 after he pointed out “anomalies in the counting process”. He also claimed to have Form-45 of all the polling stations to prove his victory over Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, who was declared victorious by the ECP.

The PTI-backed candidates Shaheen, Mohammad Ali Bukhari and Amir Mughal were defeated by PML-N’s Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Anjum Aqeel and independent Raja Khurram Shehzad. As per Form-47 for NA-47, PML-N’s candidate Tariq Fazal Chaudhry bagged 102,502 votes against PTI’s Mohammad Shuaib Shaheen, who took 86,396 votes.

In NA-48, Raja Khurram Shehzad, who was the joint nominee of the PML-N and the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP), contested the elections as an independent candidate. He defeated Mr Bukhari by securing 69,699 votes against Bukhari’s 59,851 votes. He joined the PML-N after the election.

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard the petitions. Shaheen argued before the court that the ECP on Sunday took up his application against the result of NA-47 and restrained the returning officer from issuing final result and sought a report from him in three days. However, the ECP then notified the final result while the stay order was still intact.

Justice Farooq wondered how the ECP could issue the notification of returned candidates while the stay order was in field and the application was pending.

Ali Bukhari and Mughal in their petitions claimed to have won the elections and accused the returning officers of changing the results.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2024