Suspending the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) order to re-tabulate results of NA-131 constituency, the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday accepted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s petition against the ruling for hearing.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Saad Rafique had petitioned for a recount in the closely contested NA-131 Lahore-IX constituency, from where Imran Khan had emerged victorious. He had alleged that the presiding officer deliberately rejected hundreds of votes.
Bagging a total of 84,313 votes in the constituency, Imran had defeated Rafique by 680 ballots.
The PML-N leader had then requested the returning officer (RO) concerned to conduct a recount of the rejected votes. Following the re-tabulation, Imran’s margin of victory had reduced to 608 votes. Later, Rafique petitioned to re-tabulate results of the entire constituency which was rejected by the returning officer. The PML-N leader had then challenged the decision in LHC’s election tribunal.
On August 4, the LHC heard Rafique’s petition and ordered a recount in the constituency. The high court had also ordered the ECP to withhold Imran’s victory notification for NA-131.
On Tuesday, the ECP notified all the successful candidates but withheld those whose victory had been challenged in courts, including Imran’s notification for the said constituency. As the hearing went under way, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said that NA-131’s result had already been declared. Rafique’s legal counsel contended that a recount request is valid if the victory margin is less than five per cent. When Rafique’s counsel recalled Imran’s victory speech promising to reopen all problematic constituencies, Justice Nisar observed that it was a political statement. “The court decides cases in accordance with law,” he added.
Published in Daily Times, August 9th 2018.
