Forms 34A are submitted to the Constituency returning officer whereas the ‘Taking Over’ section is filled when the Chairperson receives the Forms 34A. Indeed Regulation 82(1) requires the presiding officer to physically ferry the actual results to the Constituency returning officer. Further, Regulation 87(1)(b) requires the Constituency returning officer to deliver to the National Tallying Centre all the Forms 34A from the respective polling stations and the summary collation forms. Regulation 87(3)(a) goes on to provide that, upon the receipt of Form 34A from the Constituency returning officer, the Chairperson of the Commission shall verify the results against Forms 34A and 34B received from the Constituency returning officer. [366] How then can the 1st and 2nd respondent deny the receipt of these prescribed forms? In any case, during the hearing of the scrutiny application, Counsel for the 1st respondent submitted that the Commission was in possession of all the original Forms 34A and 34B and went ahead to suggest that, it was willing to release the same forms for inspection. We note that, during the scrutiny exercise that was subsequently carried out, the Commission produced majority of those original forms. [367] It is clear that the purpose of including the requirement for indicating the number of forms received by various officers was to ensure accountability and transparency. It is therefore unfortunate that, out of the random sample of 4,299 Forms 34A examined, a total of 189 Forms had not been filled in the hand-over section, whereas 287 forms had not been filled in the take-over section. Such kind of scenario raises the question as to the kind of verification done, if at all, by the Chairperson of the Commission. Presidential  Petition  No.  1  of  2017                                                                                                                                                                                                            159  |  P a g e    

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