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Civil Petition No. 4682 of 2017 7 challenged by the petitioners, resulting in the non-implementation of the order of the Election Commission for about two and a half years. 8. No ground for leave to appeal has been made out, therefore, this petition is dismissed. In case the re-poll, as ordered by the Election Commission, has not already taken place the Election Commission should make arrangements to do so in terms of the order of the learned Judge, that is, “proceed to fix a poll date for the constituency/polling station in question”. The office is directed to send a copy of this judgment to the Election Commission for information and compliance. JUDGE JUDGE JUDGE Bench-II Islamabad: 31.05.2018 Approved for Reporting (M. Tauseef)

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Sandhu v. Election Commission of Pakistan

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether a repoll is necessary due to an intervening crime.

Alleged Acts: The petitioners in the contest the local government elections on December 5, 2015 because the ballot papers from Polling Station No. 5 were taken from the Returning Officer at gunpoint before they could be transported. The Returning Officer reported the incident that day and on December 10, 2015 the Election Commission order a repolling for a number of polling stations. Before the repolling could take place, the petitioners brought the case before the court.

Procedural history: The Judge of the High Court dismissed the petition on December 21, 2015 and stated that the Election Commission was responsible for fixing a polling date in the impacted constituency. In petitioners appealed the case to the Intra Court Appeal and that case was dismissed on November 2, 2017.

Summary: When the case was heard, the petitioners stated that the polling, as ordered, still have not taken place. Further, the petitioner stated that the Election Commission was not given the ability to re-poll in any particular provision. The court stated that a repoll was necessary to maintain the integrity of elections and to preserve the right to vote in the election districts where the ballots were stolen and that the Election Commission had the ability to order the repoll. The impact of a repoll would not be an adverse impact on any of the candidates or voters since none of the votes could be counted from that jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The court dismissed the petition and stated that the repoll must occur.

Legal Issue(s)

Electoral Integrity
Vote Verification and Transmission

Region: Asia-Pacific

Country: Pakistan

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: General

Date of decision: May 31, 2018

Geolocation

Latitude: 33.84616314249099

Longitude: 73.04529660852897

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

Sandhu v. Election Commission of Pakistan.pdf
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Sandhu v. Election Commission of Pakistan

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