ISLAMABAD, May 4: The coming general elections will see for the first time in the country`s electoral history presiding officers wielding magisterial powers for three days.

An official told Dawn that a notification to this effect had been issued.

The presiding officers would be able to exercise these powers from May 10 to 12 and punish on the spot anyone found interfering with the electoral process.

They will be empowered to jail anyone for three months for disrupting free and fair polling process after a summary trial. Under the election laws, each presiding officer will exercise the powers of a first class magistrate for the summary trial of such troublemakers-including candidates, polling agents, voters and political supporters. The officers will also be empowered to impose a heavy fine on such people. Candidates found to be involved in any activity that may hinder the polling process will be disqualified.

The official said police and other law-enforcement personnel to be appointed for security duties at polling stations would be bound to extend assistance to the presiding officer for the summary trial of lawbreakers.

Disciplinary action will alsobe initiated against any official who fails to provide help in this regard.

The official said action would be initiated against the presiding officers who failed to exercise their magisterial powers when the situation required them to.

He said that under Section 27 of the Representation of People Act, the presiding officer of a polling station was supposed to stop voting and inform the returning officer if the polling was interrupted or obstructed for reasons beyond his control, any ballot box was unlawfully taken out of the custody of the presiding officer, or was accidentally or intentionally destroyed, lost, damaged or tampered with to such an extent that the result of the polling at the station could not be ascertained.

Under Section 27(2), where a poll has been stopped, the returning officer shall immediately report the circumstances to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that shall order fresh polling at that station, unless it is satisfied that the result of the election has been determined by the polling that has already taken place there, taken with the result of the polling at other polling stations in the constituency.

COMPLAINTS: The official said the ECP had for-warded to the district returning officers (DROs) concerned hundreds of complaints about setting up of polling stations at inappropriate places received by it from across the country. The DROs have been asked to take decisions on the complaints before May 8.

He said 135 such complaints had been received from Punjab, 129 from Sindh, 65 from Balochistan and 30 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Since it was not possible for the ECP to hear the parties due to paucity of time, it referred the complaints to the DROs.

TRANSFER ORDERS: The ECP has asked the Punjab chief secretary and inspector general of police to transfer SP Chaudhry Hanif and ASP Haseeb Shah, who were serving in Rawalpindi, and submit a compliance report within 24 hours.

The commission had received a complaint that the two officials had affiliation with the PPP and were creating problems in the election campaign of the PML-N. The ECP also ordered the Sindh police chief to immediately transfer the Thatta SP and appoint a neutral officer in his place. It had received complaints that the SP was favouring Owais Muzaffar Tappi, a candidate from PS 88.