LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday set aside a notice issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for recount of the Punjab Assembly constituency PP-161.

The court passed this order on a petition of PTI backed independent candidate Farrukh Javed, who was declared a returned candidate by the ECP in the February 8 polls.

He bagged 46947 votes while his main rival Omar Sohail of PML-N stood runner-up with 28855 votes.

Farrukh pleaded that he defeated the respondent runner-up candidate of PML-N with a margin of over 18000 votes. He said the respondent filed an application to the ECP requesting a recount in the constituency. The commission issued him notice for recounting of votes in his constituency.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that the election commission could not intervene in the matter relating to the results after the completion of the election process. He said the application for the recount was filed after the issuance of the gazette notifications of the petitioner’s victory.

He said the ECP took up the applications for the recount and issued the impugned notice to the petitioner when the election tribunals had also been constituted to hear the election matters. He, therefore, asked the court to set aside the notice issued by ECP.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024