Through this Constitutional petition, the petitioner seeks to set aside the order dated 1-8-2001 passed by the Election Tribunal by which the petitioner who was declared as successful candidate has been declared as unsuccessful and in his place respondent No.5 Abdul Ghaffar Khan has been declared as successful candidate for Workers/Peasants (Men) Seat of Union Council No.106 Waniyanwala, District Gujranwala.
2. Brief facts of the case are that the petitioner alongwith respondents Nos.5 to 15 contested for four seats of Peasants/Workers (Men) of Union Council No. 106, Waniyanwala, District Gujranwala and the petitioner was declared as returned candidate at Serial No.3 on the abovesaid seat. The petitioner according to the D.R.O. Obtained 554 votes.
3. Aggrieved by the election result respondent No.5 applied for the re-counting of the ballot papers and after re-counting the votes of the petitioner has declared as obtained 533 votes and Abdul Ghafar Khan has been declared that he has obtained 527 votes. It is the case of the petitioner that votes of two Polling Stations namely Boys Abdal (M) Serial No.8 and Girls High School Abdal (F)
Serial No.9 were not counted in favour of the petitioner at Polling Station No.4 of Girls Middle School, Waniyanwala (Female) werc declared as nil although so many votes (about 30) were casted in his favour according to the petitioner.
4. Respondent No.5 filed election petition before, the Election Tribunal respondent No.1 and prayed for the re--counting of votes of Polling Station 6(F) which was allowed and re-counting of Polling Statior: 6(F) was made and respondent No-5 was declared as obtained 17 more votes from this Polling Station and the 13 votes which were polled in favour of the petitioner were rejected. Diie to the result of this re-counting, respondent No.5 has been declared as successful candidate and petitioner has been declared unsuccessful candidate. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that re--counting of one Polling Station by Election Tribunal is illegal and void. The Election Tribunal should have re-counted the votes of all the Polling Stations in favour of all the candidates as due to the re-counting of one Polling Station and due to declaring the petitioner as unsuccessful, he has no remedy to seek the re-counting of votes of all the Polling Stations hence this writ petition is maintainable and the direction may be issued to the Tribunal by setting aside the order impugned to re-count the votes of all the Polling Stations.
5. On the other hand learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent No.5 has opposed this prayer on the ground that re--counting has been held in the presence of the parties and the votes had been correctly re--counted. Hence this petition may be dismissed.
6. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the impugned order of the Election Tribunal. Re-counting of votes of only one Polling Station has prejudiced the petitioner's claim that he is a successful candidate and has obtained more votes than respondent No.5. The Election Tribunal should have re-counted all the votes which were polled in all the Polling Stations in the presence of the parties as the petitioner as a result of the acceptance of the election petition has no further remedy to apply for the re-counting of the votes and to agitate the matter any more.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn my attention to the fact that twice re-counting has been done by the Returning Officer in which the petitioner was declared as successful candidate. I have also noticed that re-counting of one Polling Station has not met the ends of justice and the petitioner has been deprived of his success in a slipshod manner. In the peculiar circumstances of this case and for the above said reasons the impugned order, dated 1-8-2000 passed by the Election- Tribunal is set aside and case is remanded to the Election Tribunal to issue notice to all the concerned and hold the re-counting in the presence of the parties of all the Polling Stations within one month from the receipt of this order.
With this direction this petition is disposed of.