The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave seven days to the Election Commission of Pakistan to develop a workable mechanism to enable over four million overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming general polls.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Azmat Saeed, was hearing the case of right to vote for overseas Pakistanis in the general elections.Attorney General Irfan Qadir and ECP Director General Sher Afgan argued that they wanted overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote, but it was not possible in the forthcoming elections as legislation and e-voting was required for the purpose.

On a query from the bench whether the electoral lists had been put on Internet, Sher Afgan explained that the agencies and the NADRA had proposed against putting voters’ data on Internet. He pointed out that for giving right to vote to Pakistanis living in Saudi Arabia, the ECP would have to set up 500 polling stations in that country.The CJ said they were not in favour of setting up polling stations in all the cities abroad for this purpose, but the ECP could arrange polling stations in the embassies of only 10 countries.

The ECP DG (elections) said according to Article 222 (c) there was a requirement that a voter should reside in that constituency where he wanted to cast his vote and the Section 7 of Electoral Rolls Act 1977 barred overseas Pakistanis from casting vote abroad.Upon that Justice Azmat Saeed remarked that 60 per cent overseas Pakistanis were abroad to earn their livelihood and questioned whether the ECP wanted to disenfranchise them.

Afgan told the court that the ECP at a meeting had held that without legislation it was very difficult to adopt electronic ways and means enabling the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes in the coming general elections. “However, he has been instructed to form a committee and evolve a mechanism for enabling the overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote,” Sher Afghan said.

The ECP DG (elections) also provided a breakup of 4.5 million overseas Pakistanis as registered voters. He said 370,000 registered overseas Pakistanis voters had permanent and present addresses of Pakistan. He further told the court that till July 2012, some 34,239 new voters had been registered.He pointed out that electoral lists had not so far been placed on the website because of the sensitive matter of bearing photographs of female voters and feared the data could be hacked.

“Are you taking the country 100 years back?” the chief justice asked the official, adding now this was the age of computer and everybody should have an access to electoral lists. The joint secretary, however, said a plan would be made to give right to vote to Pakistanis abroad. The chief justice asked the official that the Election Commission could make arrangements in the respective embassies of only 10 countries for the overseas Pakistanis to cast their votes in the upcoming elections.

The attorney general said he had held a meeting with IT experts and representatives of the Election Commission in his office to discuss the matter. “According to Muhammad Amir Malik from the IT Ministry, the objective of giving right to vote to overseas Pakistanis will not be possible in the coming general polls.”“Moreover, legislation in this regard is also needed,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, in the election reforms case, Bilal Manto, counsel for the petitioner, expressed some reservations over the role of the ECP with regard to non-implementation of the court’s judgment. The chief justice said everyone should facilitate the ECP instead of creating complications for the commission which was already facing many difficulties.

The chief justice directed the counsel for the Workers Party to file parawise comments, proving that the court judgment had not been implemented in letter and spirit. The court also directed Attorney General Irfan Qadir to extend his fullest cooperation to the Election Commission of Pakistan in devising a workable mechanism to enable overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote in the forthcoming general elections, adjourned the case for two weeks.