Daily Times

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday issued notices to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Leader Rana Sanaullah and other respondents on a petition seeking to restrain the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from issuing a notification of his victory in NA-106, Faisalabad.

Justice Shahid Karim of LHC issued notices to the respondents to come up with replies, explaining whether the petition was maintainable or not.

The hearing was adjourned until August 6.

The petitioner pleaded with the court to direct the ECP to withhold its notification with regard to the PML-N leader’s win in NA-106 in the July 25 election.

A vote recount has been underway in the National Assembly constituency at the request OF Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate Nisar Ahmed Jutt who lost the election to the PML-N leader.

It is pertinent to mention that the ECP has asked the winning candidates to submit their election expenses to the concerned Returning Officers by August 4 for issuing official notification.

“The ECP had invited the attention of returned candidates to the provision of 98 of the Election Act 2017 which inter alia provides that every returned candidate shall, within ten days from the poll of an election, submit a return of the election expenses under section 134 and the commission shall not notify in the official gazette the result of a returned candidate who fails to submit his/her return of election expenses,” said a notification by ECP issued on Monday.

All successful candidates are bound to submit their expenditure detail within 10 days of polling while non-successful candidates are required to be submitted expenditure detail within 30 days.

Rana Sanaullah won the NA-106 seat with 106,310 votes, defeating PTI candidate Nisar Ahmed Jutt who received 103,779 votes.

A recount in the constituency, carried out on Jutt’s request, showed Sanaullah still leading the tally with 106,137 votes and the PTI candidate trailing with 103,899 votes, according to unofficial, unconfirmed results.

Meanwhile, vote recount is under way in NA-108 Faisalabad 8 constituency where PTI’s Farrukh Habib won with 112,740 votes, defeating PML-N’s Abid Sher Ali who managed 111,529 votes.

Published in Daily Times, August 2^nd 2018.