ISLAMABAD, June 7: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday declared illegal the notification of the election results of Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) as it was issued by excluding the results of a polling station in Karachi. The court issued the verdict after taking up three identical petitions filed against the results.

The PEC election committee on December 24, 2011, declared Syed Abdul Qadir Shah (brother of PPP leader Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah), and I. A. Osmani as elected chairman and senior vice-chairman of the PEC, and Niaz Ahmed, Zahid Latif and Ghulam Usman as vice-presidents from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, respectively.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui directed the election committee of the PEC to include the results of the polling station of Karachi (East) and then issue a fresh notification.

Ali Kazim Mansoor and others in their petition cited the secretary science and technology, PEC, its election committee and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) as respondents.

The petitioners’ counsel, Athar Minahhalh, told the court that the PEC in October 2011 constituted a body for conducting the elections that invited applications from interested candidates and announced balloting on December 18, 2011.

On the request of the PEC, he added, the ECP established 79 polling stations in different cities, including three in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 11 in Balochistan, two in Gilgit-Baltistan, 14 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 27 in Punjab and 22 in Shidh.

According to him, the results of the PEC elections were compiled on December 22 and the final announcement was made on December 30.

The counsel said the polling stations constituted in different cities transmitted their results to the election committee; however, one of them established at the Urdu Science University in Karachi (East) sent the results directly to the PEC. The election committee compiled the results on the basis of available data but did not include the results of Karachi (East), he said, terming the exclusion of the results illegal. He requested the court to set aside the notification of the results.

The stance of the PEC counsel —Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and Barrister Gohar Ali Khan — was in consonance with the requests of the petitioners.

Barrister Khan told Dawn that after the court’s directions a fresh notice for the election results would be issued by the PEC after including the results of Karachi (East) polling station.

He, however, said the process would affect only a few of the elected office-bearers as the total registered voters were 17,452 whereas the registered voters at Karachi (East) polling stations were not more than 1,400. The lead of majority of the successful candidates, including the chairman PEC, was more than 1,400 votes, he added.