Order reserved on PTI's pleas against rigging.

KARACHI -- The Sindh High Court on Thursday reserved its order on a set of applications filed by candidates of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf against provisional results of local government elections.

The petitioners contested the elections for the posts of chairmen of different union councils of the city and sought directives for Election Commission of Pakistan and returning officers not to issue official results and calculate the votes as per Form-XI.

The two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh reserved his orders after hearing arguments from petitioners' lawyers.

The counsel for petitioner Shamshad Khan argued that he had contested the local government election from UC-1, Korangi Town, on a PTI ticket for the post of chairman and as per the Form-XI issued by the presiding officers to the poling agents, he won the election with a margin of over 450 votes.

However, the counsel contended, in the provisional result issued by the RO, votes were wrongly counted, which were contrary to the Form-XI and Mohammad Naveed of PML-N was shown the winner.

He further asserted that as per the provisional result, 7,725 valid votes were polled while the number of votes obtained by all contesting candidates was calculated as 8,778 which was prima facie mala fide and void ab initio on the face of it and, as such, was illegal and liable to be cancelled.

Three other candidate of PTI advocate Hasnain Chohan, Waqar and...