The executive committee of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) has declared the October 31 annual election of the Supreme Court Bar Association as null and void, and decided to hold fresh elections on December 18.
PBC Vice Chairman Ali Ahmed Kurd told Business Recorder on Thursday evening that the seven-member executive committee has taken this decision as record of the polling was not made available to it during hearing of the contentious claims of the candidates.He said the PBC executive committee will hold the fresh elections and announce the election schedule.
It may be recalled that the 2006-07 annual election of the Supreme Court Bar Association were held after the expiry of one-year term of the out-going elected body and as per rotation formula the next SCBA president was to be elected from Sindh.
There were three candidates in the field for the office of the SCBA president and the polling was held at eight centres, Islamabad, Lahore, Multan, Bahawalpur, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, and Abbotabad in which more than 1,300 advocates of the Supreme Court cast their votes.
However, there were some procedural deviations in the casting of votes at the Karachi polling station, which vitiated the polling process, resulting into victory claims by two candidates Munir A. Malik and Raja Haq Nawaz.
The matter went in the Supreme Court, which, after hearing the counsel of the parties, directed the PBC executive committee to decide the matter. However, Raja Haq Nawaz contested the jurisdiction of the PBC executive committee in deciding the SCBA election results.