Executive officers likely to perform elections duties instead of judicial staff

• S&GAD Punjab has started compiling lists of 300 officers.
• ECP had written to CJs of Lahore, Peshawar high courts on April 30.
• Executives posting for elections not new phenomenon: Dilshad.

LAHORE: Due to a lack of response from judiciary, district returning officers are likely to be deputed from the executive to perform election duties, The News reported on Thursday.

The development follows after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) did not get any response from the judiciary for the appointment of judicial officers to supervise the upcoming polls expected to be held in last week of January next year, sources told the publication.

In this context, the S&GAD Punjab and its services wing have started compiling lists of 300 BPS 17 to BPS-20 officers, the sources said.

The S&GAD list excludes those officers serving with respective Chief Minister Secretariat, Governor’s House and administrative positions.

According to the sources, the ECP had written to the chief justices of Lahore and Peshawar High courts on April 30 to nominate judicial staff as returning and district returning officers (ROs, DROs) for supervising provincial elections in Punjab and KP. But the commission did not get any response.

If the commission, they said, does not get any reply in the next two to three days, the lists of executives will be sent to the ECP for deputing them as ROs for holding elections on 297 Punjab Assembly seats and 141 National Assembly seats.

Besides, the executive officers will also be tasked as district returning officers in 42 districts of Punjab. Later, after their scrutiny, the ECP will depute them.

When former ECP secretary Kanwar Dilshad was contacted, he said that Chief Election Commissioner Sikander Sultan Raja had written several times to the chief justices but he was informed that “judicial officers are engaged”. The ECP is still waiting for a reply from the judiciary, he said and added if the commission does not get any response, it will depute executives as returning and district returning officers.

Dilshad said the posting of executives for supervising elections is not a new phenomenon.

They conducted elections from 1977 to 1985. It changed after former premier Benazir Bhutto and former president Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari demanded the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan to depute returning and district returning officers from the judiciary.

Since 1988, elections have been held under the supervision of the judiciary.