ISLAMABAD: The Federal Cons­ti­tutional Court (FCC) on Wednesday suspended the notification of Ali Hassan Zehri who was declared as a candidate returned from the contested Balochistan Assembly PB-21 Hub constituency in the Feb 8, 2024 general elections.

Headed by Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan, a three-judge FCC bench also set aside the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision of a vote re-count by declaring that the commission failed to comply with a Nov 20, 2024 Supreme Court directive.

The FCC had taken up an appeal of Muhammad Saleh Bhotani, a member of the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), against the Dec 20, 2024 rejection of his plea by the Balochistan High Court, Khuzdar bench (BHC).

Authored by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, a 15-page order held the BHC order was not sustainable in the eyes of law particularly in view of the consent order passed by the Supreme Court earlier.

ECP decision of vote recount also set aside by the court

“As a consequence, leave to appeal is granted and this petition is converted into an appeal and is allowed and Dec 20, 2024 BHC order as well as that of Dec 16, 2024 ECP directions are set aside with further direction to the commission to comply with the order of the Supreme Court in letter and in spirit.

The directions required the ECP to decide the applications for recounting of votes in PB-21 Hub in 39 polling stations afresh. If the applications are decided in negative, then the commission will proceed further in accordance with law expeditiously and preferably within two months. Until then the notification of returned candidate of respondent No 4 (Ali Hassan Zehri) is suspended, the order said.

Mr Bhotani, along with 19 other candidates, including Ali Hassan Zehri, had contested the Feb 8, 2024 general elections from PB-21, Balochistan.

Being apprehensive of suspicious counting, on Feb 9, 2024, Mr Zehri had filed an application for recounting of votes on which the Returning Officer (RO) observed that the request for recounting seems valid keeping in view considerable delay in retrieval of polling material and forwarded this application to Provincial Election Commission and District Returning Officer, District Election Commissioner, Hub.

On Feb 9, 2024, Form 47 was issued for provisional consolidation statement of results, according to which total votes polled in the constituency were recorded as 76,976, total valid votes polled were recorded as 73,328. The votes rejected and excluded from the count were 3,648.

Mr Bohati having secured 30,910 votes was declared as returned candidate, whereas Rajab Ali Rind secured 17,000 votes and Mr Zehri bagged 14,120 votes.

The ECP initially ordered re-counting on Feb 11, 2024, but the process was marred by violence, arrests, and allegations of fake ballots. After multiple rounds of litigation, the Supreme Court on Nov 20, 2024, annulled all proceedings and directed ECP to decide the matter afresh.

Despite this, ECP on Dec 16, 2024, in a split 3-2 decision, upheld the re-count and notified Mr Zehri as the winner, prompting Mr Bhotani to approach the BHC and later the FCC.

The recounting is always allowed on the basis of some material establishing illegality and irregularity in the count and the powers to recount should be allowed sparingly after satisfaction of the material/evidence that there is every inclusion/exclusion of the ballot paper in the count, the judgment said.

The sanctity of the ballot is sacrosanct and, therefore, it should not be allowed to be violated on frivolous/vague and indefinite allegations not supported by adequate statements of detailed material facts, Justice Najafi observed.

It should only be allowed to do full justice between parties without a roving inquiry with a view to fish material to declare the election as void. By virtue of Nov 20, 2024 Supreme Court order, the proceedings before ECP stood annulled and the matter was to be decided by it afresh on the pending applications which means that the applications for recounting was to be decided afresh without being influenced by the previous results since they no longer existed from the very date.

Needless to observe that recounting is an administrative act with all its consequences with respect to the remedies available under the law, the judgment said.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2026