KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday dismissed a petition filed against an order of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) about the recount of votes of candidates on the provincial assembly seat PS-112 (Keamari-II).

Sirbuland Khan, an independent candidate backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, petitioned the SHC in April and submitted that he had secured 16,287 votes and won the election against Pakistan Peoples Party’s Asif Khan, who got 10,784 votes.

The petitioner also submitted that he challenged the the April 1 order of the ECP regarding recounting of votes of 26 polling stations in the constituency before the SHC which, through an interim order, had suspended the order.

On Monday, a two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui and Justice Omar Sial took up the matter for hearing and heard arguments from the parties concerned.

The bench, for reasons to be recorded later, dismissed the petition through a short order.

Earlier, the petitioner had submitted that he had already taken oath as an MPA and despite this, the ECP had ordered the returning officer (RO) for a recount and further asked the RO to complete the recounting process within three days and prepare Form-49 accordingly.

He maintained that under Section 95(6) of the Election Act, 2019 the ECP had no jurisdiction to recount the votes after consolidation of the results.

At a previous hearing, the RO in his reply had submitted that in the light of ECP’s order, the recounting process was completed on April 4 and Froms-48 and 49 had been prepared after the recount.

He also filed a copy of From-49, which said that after the recount, the PPP candidate stood winner with11,724 votes while the petitioner was runner-up with 9,943 votes.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2024