‘Officers from diverse departments’ may serve as DROs, ROs: ECP

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is considering the appointment of “officers from diverse departments,” including judiciary, federal, and provincial governments, and officers from ECP as district returning officers (DROs) and returning officers (ROs) in the upcoming election on February 8, The News has reported on Thursday.

According to the report, it is highly likely that ECP will use a mix of officers, but no official decision has been taken in this matter.

“The Election Commission is left with no option but to engage officers from diverse departments. Already, the provincial election commissioners are in the process of finalising lists of officers for the poll job, besides Central Secretariat,” a senior official of the ECP told The News.

The source from ECP also said that judiciary had rejected the request to appoint officers for election duty because of multiple reasons, including several pending cases. However, one of the smaller provincial high courts expressed a willingness to provide officers for election duty.

To a question, he said around 1,000 DROs and ROs would be involved in the nationwide election duty.

In 2009, the National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) decided not to appoint judicial officers for election duty, as this had dragged the “judiciary into political controversies”.