ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday conducted hearing into a appeal by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate seeking withdrawal of victory notification of a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader after re-polling on certain polling stations in NA-91, Sargodha elections, ARY News reported.
A top court’s bench headed by Justice Azmat Saeed Khosa had ordered re-counting of votes in NA-91 on plea of the losing candidate. PTI’s Aamir Sultan Cheema had won the NA-91 election, after re-polling on 20 polling stations, in Sargodha on Feb 2 with 12,000 votes. While PML-N’s Zulfikar Bhatti had got 3,134 votes.
The lawyer of Zulfikar Bhatti said the recounting couldn’t be initiated as yet, because it recently transpired that some manipulation was done with the vote bags. The report in this regard has already been sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan, he told the court.
Counsel of the winning candidate said the result had been announced of re-polling and now a victory notification was awaited.
The court asked whether Bhatti took part in the re-polling, and after receiving the reply in affirmative, the SC bench said the candidate gambled himself and now was he raising objections before the court.
Justice Azmat Saeed said Bhatti could challenge the result in the election tribunal. The judge also later issued notice to the attorney general. The court rejected Bhatti’s plea to withdraw notification of result of the winning candidate.
The hearing was adjourned till Feb 28.
Earlier ,the investigation team, forwarding its report to the ECP, had advised re-polling for 20 polling stations.
On Jan 29, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had also sought report of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on NA-91 Sargodha elections.
PML-N candidate Zulifqar Bhatti had approached the Supreme Court seeking re-polling at 20 polling stations in NA-91.
