NA-110 Sialkot: Supreme Court dismisses pleas against Asif's election

Dismissing pleas challenging the incumbent Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's victory from National Assembly constituency NA-110 Sialkot in general elections 2013, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Election Tribunal's verdict in the matter.A three-member bench led by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali dismissed the pleas while issuing a short order, "We have heard the arguments of the learned ASCs for the appellants and respondent at length - for the reasons to be recorded separately, both these appeals are dismissed".
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) runner-up candidate from the constituency, Usman Dar, and an independent candidate, Arshad, had their pleas dismissed by the concerned Election Tribunal. They later invoked the Supreme Court's jurisdiction against the tribunal's verdict in the matter.
After Babar Awan, the counsel for the PTI candidate Usman Dar, completed his arguments, Farooq H Naek, the counsel for Khawaja Muhammad Asif, requested the court to dismiss the pleas on grounds of lack of solid evidence. Naek pleaded that National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) had submitted a report in addition to two reports by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the current matter saying all the reports maintained that the electoral process was not interfered with in the constituency.
Babar Awan, in his rebuttal, stated that five bags of votes were found missing while many were found with broken seals. This prompted Justice Amir Hani Muslim to observe that this objection was not raised and cross-examined before the Election Tribunal. Awan responded that NA-110 constituency election could be given any name but could not be referred to as an election.
Naek further contended that the entire election material was properly stored in the Election Commission's treasury office. Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali remarked that during his tenure as Acting Chief Election Commissioner he learnt that space was unavailable for storing any election material in the treasury of either the federal election commission or the provincial election commission. The Chief Justice further observed that it is not wise to hold a winning candidate responsible for missing election material given that it is the responsibility of the Election Commission to protect its electoral records.
During the course of proceedings, Justice Amir Hani Muslim remarked that even in KPK's election commission office, no space is available to maintain election material. Responding to Naek's statement that he was a member of the Parliamentary Committee for election reforms in the country, Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali observed that apart from holding regular meetings the Committee has not yet come up with any solution to problems. Chief Justice Jamali further remarked that people in power have yet to undertake the critical census exercise which was undertaken 15 years ago.