PTI candidates told to approach ECP for copies of Form 45

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday dismissed the petitions of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) general election candidates seeking the court’s order to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to issue certified copies of Form 45 and other relevant documents, and asked them to approach the relevant forum as provided under the law.

The petitions were filed by PTI candidates Zahooruddin Khan, Dawa Khan and Tariq Hussain, who had contested the February 8 polls for the National Assembly’s NA-237 and NA-242 constituencies, and the provincial assembly’s PS-117 constituency.

They claimed that they had secured the highest number of votes in their respective constituencies as shown by the Form 45s received from their polling agents, but the returning officers had not yet issued their certified copies.

They said that neither did the ROs of the constituencies issue certified copies of Form 36, Form 45, Form 46, Form 47, Form 48 and Form 49 nor did the ECP put those forms on its website.

They requested that the ECP and the ROs be directed to issue the certified copies and display the forms on the official website for proper verification so that the results can be challenged before the relevant forum.

The provincial law officer said the petitions were not maintainable because all the forms were put up on the ECP’s website. He said the ECP was the proper forum where all the forms were being kept in sealed envelopes, and only the ECP can issue their certified copies.

After hearing the arguments of the counsel, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi said the petition was not maintainable because the relevant forum was available under the law. The bench added that that petitioners were at liberty to approach the relevant forum, as provided under the law, where their request might be examined by the authority concerned in accordance with the law.

The court had earlier directed the deputy attorney general to file his comments on the petition of another PTI candidate, Shujaat Ali Khan, who had moved the SHC against not being supplied with certified copies of Form 45, Form 36 and Form 46 by the RO of NA-243.

On Monday, Sindh PTI president Haleem Adil Shaikh had filed a petition with a sessions court, seeking registration of an FIR against the district returning officer and the returning officer of NA-238 for allegedly tampering with election results.

The former opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, who contested the February 8 elections on the NA seat in District East, moved the petition under Section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), citing the SSP Complaint Cell (East) and Aziz Bhatti SHO as respondents.

The RO of NA-238, Farooq Ahmed Qazi, and DRO Altaf Ahmed Sheikh, along with three to four unknown persons, have been named proposed accused in the petition.

The petitioner through his lawyer Ashraf Samoo stated that as per the Forms-45 available with him, he secured 82,972 votes, while his rival candidate Sadiq Iftikhar of the MQM obtained 10,226 votes, but the RO and DRO colluded to show the MQM-P candidate’s votes as 54,884 in Form-47. “On March 5, Forms-45 were uploaded by the Election Commission on its official website, and bare reading of the Forms-45 of the constituency of NA-238 clearly shows that real votes of petitioner have been tampered with white pen and overwriting is done.”