NA-110 Sialkot: SC asks Nadra to depute officer for interpretation of forensic report's content

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to depute an officer for interpretation of the forensic report contents on voters' thumb verification of NA -110 Sialkot. PML-N leader and incumbent Defence Minister Khawaja Asif was elected as Member National Assembly (MNA) from NA-110 during general election 2013, however, his success has been challenged by Usman Dar of the PTI. Accepting the plea of Dar against the Election Tribunal in the matter, the top court had issued directives to the Nadra for verification of votes in the constituency.
In pursuance of the court directives, the Nadra Chairman submitted forensic report on June 1, 2016 saying that a total of 147,698 voters were processed through Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), saying that out of which 102,950 voters could not be verified due to poor quality of the fingerprints on their counterfoil. The report said that Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) numbers on counterfoils of such votes were valid.
Appearing before a three member judge bench led by the Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali on behalf of Dar in the matter, Babar Awan contended that non verification of fingerprints of voters mean that somebody else polled the vote. Raising another objection, Awan pleaded that a total of 29 polling stations record is missing and he urged the bench to ask from the Election Commission of Pakistan about whereabouts of 29 polling stations record.
Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali observed that someone from Nadra can explain the reason to write word X in the CNIC number whereas a member of the bench Justice Umar Atta Bandial said that the Commission has no stores to keep election material. Later, hearing of the matter was adjourned till June 08 (today).