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SC orders immediate rectification of voters’ lists
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday expressed concern over inaction of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in removing fake voters' names from the electoral lists and revamping them.
The apex Court also asked Secretary of the Election Commission Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan whether the ECP would continue holding by-elections on the basis of these error-prone lists?
A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Muhammad Sair Ali and Justice Ghulam Rabbani on a plea filed by Muabbashir Lucman, an anchorperson, seeking deletion of the fake voters' names from the lists, directed the Chief Election Commission to fulfil his constitutional requirements.
Disposing of the petition, the bench, however, made it clear that it was not the Court's job to issue a directive for holding population census to help remove the flaws.
The bench said that the ECP and the Census Division could go ahead to achieve the objective under the mandate given by the Constitution.
The bench also observed that there was no second opinion that the existing electoral lists contained names in terms of errors, multiple and bogus entries, a factual position which was also mentioned by the ECP in its press release.
At the outset of the proceedings, ECP Secretary Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan apprised the bench that they were working to remove certain errors in the lists for the last one and a half year and sought time till December.
He said that the ECP itself had initiated the process over certain flaws and sought assistance from the National Database and Registration Authority.
He said about 36 million entries having errors would be removed.
With the assistance of Census Division, the ECP would made entries into the electoral lists only on the basis of computerized national identity cards, he added.
Sher Afgan, additional secretary of ECP, also read out on bench's directive a press release of the commission which it had issued on the subject.
The Chief Justice told them that the ECP knew about the practice as how these entries were made into electoral lists.
He said the ECP had failed to discharge its duty.
"Do you want us to say certain things? How do you hold elections on the basis of electoral lists prepared in 2007? Are you holding elections on the basis of bogus lists?" he said, adding, "What is the use of such a huge paraphernalia? Nothing happened over electoral lists though the Court had issued a directive in the Benazir Bhutto's case."
The petitioner had prayed that such fake voters' lists should be immediately removed as there should not be any conflict between the details of voters' lists complied by the NADRA and those of the Election Commission.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), in its first phase of preparations for the new electoral rolls, had found over 37 million voters registered in 2007 as dubious because they were either duplicate, multiple or bogus entries, he added.
Courtesy www.geo.tv