Lawyers are the peace makers – these are the words a single-member bench of the Islamabad High Court comprising Justice Babar Sattar uttered while addressing the counsels for parties in a plea questioning election’s legality of incumbent Chairman Arif Changezi and other members of the Executive Committee of Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP).
Supreme Court Advocate Umer Ijaz Gilani has filed the plea on behalf of Arch. Jehangir Khan Sherpao, and others in the matter. The bench directed counsels for the parties to mediate the matter amicably instead of entering into litigation as PCATP is a forum of illuminated persons as the judge was of the view that prima facie there are question marks over transparency and integrity of the elections.
Earlier, the petitioners apprised the IHC that incumbent Chairman of the PCATP Arif Changezi stole the elections saying Changezi has declared himself as a victor in hastily manner, adding even though the credibility of elections was shattered because of hackers’ attack on the online voting system.
The petitioners relied upon a report of an IT company saying the company was entrusted with carrying out online elections. The report disclosed the IT company plainly admitted: “we witnessed an attack on our voting system at around 02:00am on 7th March, 2023. As a result of this attack, our voting result was manipulated… we cannot certify the result”. Counsel for the Petitioners informed the Court that after receiving this report, two members of the Election Committee patently rejected the election results. The Committee’s Convenor, also did not fully endorse the results and wrote that “report of Consultant IT be attached and shared with contestants and uploaded on the website”. Only 2 out of 5 members endorse the result.
According to copy of the order available with TLTP, the bench said during last week, “ I have heard initial arguments of the learned counsels for the petitioners and the respondents. It appears, prima facie, that there are question marks over the transparency and integrity of the election and its result that has been impugned before this Court for being in breach of Section 4 of the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) Ordinance, 1983”.
The bench further said in its order, “Given that the PCATP is a regulatory body of professionals, the Court feels that it would be in the interest of the profession and PCATP to try and mediate the disputes with regard to the manner in which the election was convened and the way forward. 2. Let the petitioners and respondents No.1, 2 and 3 make bonafide efforts to resolve the matter and evolve an agreement in relation to the way forward. Later, the court adjourned hearing of the matter till January 24, 2024
