LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday set aside an Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) notice to a PTI-backed independent MPA on an application for vote recount in the Punjab Assembly constituency, PP-161.

Justice Shahid Karim passed the order on a petition by Farrukh Javed, who was declared a returned candidate by the ECP in the Feb 8 polls.

He bagged 46,947 votes while his main rival Omar Sohail of the PML-N was runner-up with 28,855 votes.

Javed pleaded that he had defeated the respondent, PML-N runner-up, by a margin of over 18,000 votes. He said the respondent filed an application to the ECP, requesting vote recount in the constituency and the commission issued him (the petitioner) a notice.

A counsel for the petitioner argued that the ECP could not intervene in the matter relating to the results after the completion of the election process. He said the application for the vote recount was filed after the issuance of the gazette notifications of the petitioner’s victory.

He said the election tribunals had also been constituted to hear the election petitions when the ECP took up the applications for vote recount and issued the impugned notice to the petitioner.

He asked the court to set aside the ECP notice for being unlawful.

Previously, Justice Karim also allowed petitions of two PTI-backed independents against the recounting process in NA-79, Gujranwala, and NA-133, Kasur.

The judge had also struck down an ECP decision of vote recount in NA-81, Gujranwala, restoring the victory of PTI-backed independent candidate Bilal Ijaz.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2024