ISLAMABAD: The judicial commission on alleged electoral rigging issued notices to five new witnesses on Saturday. They will be appearing before the commission on Monday (May 11).

Those who have been summoned by the three-man commission, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Nasir-ul-Mulk are: Printing Corporation of the Pakistan Press (PCPP) Managing Director Karachi Muzaffar Ali Chandio, PCPP MD Lahore Mohammad Rafique, PCPP Islamabad MD Moosa Raza Affandi, Postal Foundation Press Islamabad MD Ejaz Ahmed Minhas and Pakistan Security Printing Corporation Karachi MD Rizwan Ahmed.

All five officers were at the helm of affairs in different offices at the time of acquisition and printing of ballot papers for the 2013 general elections. All these witnesses are on the list of 14 witnesses provided to the commission by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

Read: Judicial commission to examine witnesses from May 6

In its proceedings on Friday, the commission decided to continue recording the testimony of Punjab Election Commissioner Mehboob Anwar, along with the five new witnesses.

Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, representing the PTI, completed his cross-examination of Mr Anwar on behalf of the party, whereas Salman Akram Raja, representing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), will now commence his cross-examination.

On Saturday, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) placed additional documents before the commission which included communications between the PCPP and ECP before the elections, as well as some election materials highlighting that the PCPP Islamabad had printed ballot papers for 65 different constituencies of the National Assembly as well as 153 constituencies of different provincial assemblies.

The additional documents claimed that paucity of resources and manpower were the basic reason behind the delay in the printing of the ballot papers.

Also read: PTI submits 522 documents of evidence

Mr Anwar, in his testimony before the commission, had acknowledged that he had called the former Punjab additional chief secretary Rao Iftikhar, the contact person for the caretaker Punjab government, for the provision of 100 to 200 individuals who were conversant with the binding and numbering of ballot papers. Mr Anwar had also admitted that around 74 people were provided to the PCPP in Islamabad, where over 172 million ballot papers were printed.

But due to the constrains being faced by the PCPP, the Pakistan Postal Foundation was also assigned the task to share the burden of printing under the supervision of the armed forces.

The additional documents stated that the PCPP Karachi was asked to print ballot papers for 41 National Assembly and 88 provincial assembly constituencies, whereas the PCPP Lahore was tasked to print ballots for 23 NA and 39 provincial assembly constituencies.

An extra 2.36 million ballot papers had to be printed in addition to the total number of ballot papers because of different court decisions due to litigation as well changes in the election symbols.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2015

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