AJK Court Suspends Central Press Club Elections

Faiza Gilani

Muzaffarabad: Additional District and Session Judge Muzaffarabad on Monday suspended the Central Press Club’s (CPC) elections, which had taken place on Sunday.

This action was taken in response to a violation of the court’s previous order, as highlighted in a petition filed by Farooq Khan Mughal, a CPC member, against Raja Iftikhar Ahmad and others. The court has summoned the respondents in person on Wednesday to address the contempt of court charges.

Despite the district and session judge issuing a stay order on Saturday, preventing the elections as per the petitioner’s plea until Monday, the respondents proceeded to conduct fraudulent elections on Sunday. They even organized a midnight swearing-in ceremony for the purportedly elected office bearers.

In the main application, the petitioner argued that he was a presidential candidate. The outgoing president, who was seeking re-election, allegedly removed the petitioner’s and his nominator’s names from the voter list at the last moment, attempting to exclude them from the electoral process.

Upon issuing notices to the respondents for Monday, the judge also issued a stay order to uphold the status quo. Despite the court representative serving the orders to the respondents, they willfully violated the honorable court’s directive by proceeding with the polls on Sunday. Nearly half of the total membership abstained from participating in the polling process.

The election commissioner, in a dubious move, employed a counterfeit polling agent for the opposing candidate. Subsequently, he fabricated and announced the election results, declaring candidates from his favored group as successful. Moreover, he promptly issued notifications confirming the success of these candidates and orchestrated their oath-taking ceremony at midnight on the same day.

The stay of the elections was extended until January 15th, while the plea to declare so-called elections null and void was fixed for Wednesday, suspending the election of the office holders till date, and an in-person summons was issued to respondents in contempt on the same date.