LAHORE – Justice Mamoonur Rashid of the Lahore High Court has accepted theplea of Khawaja Saad Rafique and ordered the vote recount in the NA-131constituency.

The court also ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) towithhold the victory notification of Imran Khan.

Khawaja Saad Rafique had approached the LHC for the vote recount in hisconstituency after the returning officer dismissed his application.

According to the petitioner, a large number of irregularities had beenwitnessed by him and his polling agents but no legal action was taken inthis regard.

His polling agents, he contended, were not provided Form 45 and they wereforcibly ejected from the counting process.

He asserted that although he had won the election by securing a clearmargin, the provisional result for his constituency was deliberatelywithheld to manipulate the actual vote count.

According to him, presiding officers of various polling stations had gonemissing and no returning officer or ECP representative was willing todisclose relevant information to the petitioner after the polling on July25 and the next day.

Rafiq pointed out that he had filed an application for vote recount on July26 and a notice in this regard was issued by the returning officerconcerned on July 27. He said that he was not in possession of theconsolidated results before filing his application for recount.

He said that had fulfilled all legal requirements prescribed in Section 95of the Election Act, necessitating the returning officer to order therecount.

He asserted that the returning officer had dismissed his applicationwithout merit, violating provisions of Section 95 of the Election Act.

He also requested the court to set aside the returning officer’s orderdismissing his application for vote recount.