Election Commission to form enquiry committees for all constituencies

The Election Commission has decided to have an electoral enquiry committee for every constituency to prevent irregularities in the 12th parliamentary polls.

The law and justice secretary has been tasked with forming the 300 committees by selecting judicial officers in consultation with the Supreme Court.

The committees will be responsible for investigating election-related crimes, breach of the code of conduct, and any anomalies in orchestrating a fair election.

They will report their findings to the EC, said Election Commissioner Ahsan Habib Khan.

Following the announcement of the 11th parliamentary election schedule, 122 similar committees with 244 magistrates were set up to curb pre-election irregularities.

Habib said the EC has decided to raise the number of such committees in an attempt to reduce irregularities.

He believes this approach will lead to better management of judicial duties.

Each committee will include a joint district judge or senior assistant judge.

They will have three days to complete the investigation.

The committees will be effective until the official declaration of the results in gazettes.

EC officials said it plans to add hundreds more judicial magistrates to the committees during the vote. They will be tasked with addressing election-related crimes.

Thousands of executive magistrates will also work during the election to ensure that everyone follows the code of conduct.

The number of executive magistrates who had initially been given election duties during the 11th parliamentary polls was 716, which later increased to 1,328. As many as 640 judicial magistrates also worked during the last election.