ISLAMABAD, Dec 21: The Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission on Wednesday to complete the process of preparing fresh electoral rolls by February 23 next year -— a gigantic task involving removal of 37 million invalid names from the old list.

“There will be bloodshed if the next general elections are held on the basis of bogus votes as no political party will accept the results. Will the ECP take the responsibility for holding such elections,” asked Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who heads a three-judge bench hearing a petition filed by Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan.

The bench also comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry issued notices to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Secretary General Jehangir Badar on a similar petition which has been clubbed with the main petition.

The petition was filed in 2007 by former prime minister and PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto against irregularities in the voters’ list.

The case will be taken up on Jan 10 next year.

At that time too, the chief justice recalled, the court had directed the ECP to complete the process of preparing electoral rolls within a month which the commission had done but with bogus votes.

The court issued the order despite a request by ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed that the preparation of fresh electoral rolls was not possible before May or June next year.

The court asked the ECP to honour the deadline of Feb 23 set by the commission on July 4, 2010, and said all executing authorities of the federal government would be at the commission’s disposal to complete the job. “Under Article 220 of the Constitution, it is the duty of all government organisations to assist the ECP,” the court said.

“What will the ECP do if today the government announced holding of the next general elections, lets say by March next year,” the chief justice said, adding that the delay on the part of the ECP appeared to be deliberate and evident from the fact that the commission had failed to revise the electoral rolls over the last two years.

“The court can arraign the ECP for committing contempt by violating its earlier directive of finalising the electoral rolls,” the bench warned and asked the commission to complete the process by involving all the staff it had at its disposal.

The ECP secretary argued that the deteriorating law and order situation in Balochistan, epidemic of dengue fever in Punjab and widespread floods in Sindh were the major factors which had hindered the pace of finalising the electoral rolls. Besides, he added, the Sindh assembly had adopted a resolution extending the time period for completing the process in the province.

The ECP recently completed a campaign for verification of 80 million registered voters across the country.

The justification, however, failed to impress the bench which asked how the deadline could be extended without the permission of the Supreme Court where the case was pending.

“The presence of 37 million bogus votes amounts to 44 per cent of the total vote bank,” Justice Tariq Pervez said and asked whether the ECP intended to elect the new parliament on the basis of faulty votes.

The chief justice also asked the ECP as to how by-elections on vacant seats were being held on bogus votes.

The Nadra chairman informed the court that the process was a gigantic job because it involved the printing of 8.4 million electoral rolls.

Meanwhile, the court reissued notices to 28 members of the parliament and provincial assemblies elected through by-elections in the absence of a properly-constituted Election Commission.

The court also ordered the federal government to come up with a detailed response in 15 days to a separate petition filed by Imran Khan requesting to grant voting rights to overseas Pakistanis.