ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to come up with a justification for the missing election record of 29 polling stations in the National Assembly constituency NA-110, Sialkot.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, directed ECP Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh to furnish within a week a written reply before the court after finding the missing election record of 29 polling stations.

The bench had taken up an application of losing Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf candidate Usman Dar from NA-110, Sialkot, from where Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif won the 2013 election.

Representing PTI`s candidate, Dr Babar Awan said on Wednesday that in its forensic report on NA-110, Nadra had missed out 29 polling stations, adding that the aggregate result of this came to 30,000 votes a staggering number which could change the result of elections.

The court also directed Nadra officials to answer questions raised by Mr Awan about its analysis report on the constituency.

The counsel pointed out that the analysis report had mentioned identity cards of voters with 12 digits while the identity cards contained 13 digits. The Nadra report has shown letter X in place of the 13th digit, the counsel said, adding that this showed that the report was faulty and not correct.

During the proceedings, the ECP secretary explained that the election record of NA-110 constituency had been received by the district returning officer and according to the ECP`s information the election record of five polling stations, and not 29, was missing.

However, the secretary assured the courtthat the ECP would submit a comprehensive report after summoning the complete record from the returning officer of the constituency.

Dr Awan also argued that the election record of Eve of the 29 polling stations of the constituency had vanished completely.

At this the chief justice regretted that disappearance of the election record was a stigma on the ECP and created doubts about the entire electoral process.

Disappearance of the election record will become a mockery since people will start coming to courts and it will help set a stage for holding re-elections.

Pointing towards the counsel, the chief justice said that election day was not as peaceful as `we think like this air-conditioned courtroom.

Rather one of the returning officers in his evidence before an inquiry commission had described the elections day as a judgement day with lots of confusion and mistalces`.

The court also asked the counselthatif he was not satisfied with Nadra`s forensic reports on NA-110, then the court could order to destroy it, but the counsel said he had complete trust in the report but it was his legal right to raise questions on the authority`s analysis report.

Nadra`s legal director said that the court had the authority to conduct verification of thumbs` impressions and not to authenticate the identity card numbers. However, the court ordered Nadra to submit a comprehensive report on questions raised by the counsel.

During the proceedings, the counsel requested the Supreme Court to ask the ECP to submit a complete record of the show-cause proceedings initiated against the presiding officer who was allegedly invited by the winning candidate from the constituency before 2013 elections. The court, however, ignored the request and adjourned the proceedings for a week.