Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has dismissed the review petition of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidate Usman Dar in an election rigging case against State Minister for Water and Power, Khawaja Asif.

Crying foul, the applicant wanted a re-election in NA-110, the election constituency of Khawaja Asif.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar and consisting of Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah took up the review petition on Monday. During the course of the hearing, Babar Awan, the counsel for Usman Dar, took the plea that the records of three constituencies had not been recovered so far. He said that 8,773 counterfoils were also not found, while the meeting of Khawaja Asif with election staff was on record.

Chief Justice Mian Saqib remarked that election record was put in the storerooms while there was no ground present on which review had been taken. He said that the SC had given the right decision. “How can the SC declare the whole election as ‘set-aside’ on the plea of just ten people? We cannot call unregistered votes ‘bogus’.” The Supreme Court (SC) upheld the notification of Khawaja Asif’s success in NA-110 given in November 2016 and dismissed the review petition.