Former Secretary of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad, said on Wednesday that election candidates don’t need to appear before returning officers (ROs) to submit their nomination papers or for scrutiny of papers.
Candidates who are hiding or proclaimed offenders need to appear before ROs to submit their nomination papers; otherwise, their nomination papers will be rejected.
As per Section 62 of the Election Act of 2017, the election candidate is not required to be present at the time of submitting nomination papers.
Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad also said that former President General Pervez Musharraf said in 2002 that a candidate needs to appear before RO to submit their nomination paper.
The election order was illegal as Musharraf was targeting former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif at that time, and he wanted to keep Banazir and Nawaz Sharif out of the elections.
He said that in 2007, the ECP amended the Election Order 2002, after which Bhutto and Sharif did not need to submit their nomination papers and appear in person at the time of scrutiny.
“At the time of scrutiny of nomination papers, the candidate’s election agent, proposer and a voter who has registered an objection under sub-section (1) shall be present. The returning officer shall give him reasonable opportunity of scrutinising all nomination papers. Nowhere in this section is mentioned that the candidate must be present before the returning officer at the time of submission of nomination papers or scrutiny,” he added.
