Flashback : It was sometime in 1984, that I first saw this man, resplendent in a suit, smoking a pipe, a character straight out of Dickens. The place was the SITE Association of Industry and the meeting was another routine affair to sort out matters with some government functionary or maybe a banker. In those days there was not much activity in the Association. This person said little and observed a lot.

Then came the annual elections of SITE. Normally it would be have been an unanimous decision, more a selection than an election. But this time, this man came up with his own panel against the godfathers. We went all out to defeat this man and his panel. He took the defeat with grace and, instead of sulking and brooding, he began to participate in all meetings and functions. By this time, we, the Young Turks, were beginning to feel dejected with the lackadaisical performance of the Association and the timid and low-profile attitude of the seniors. Somehow, we saw in this man the potential to raise the level of this Association. Somehow, we gradually gravitated towards him. Somehow, we all united to oust the old guard.

We won the election, inspite of lot of opposition and inspite of the full support of the Chamber godfathers and other business leaders for the old team. We now had a majority in the new managing committee. That is how this man became the leader of the young industrialists. The Liberals Group. Ejaz Shaffi became the Chairman of the SITE Association of Industry.

The advent of the new team was like a revolution. Suddenly it was SITE Association all around. Ejaz Shaffi and his team took the dormant industrial and business scene by storm. We became the darling of the press media. We were feared by the Chamber mafia. We were respected and admired by the bureaucracy. We became the Voice of Industry. We began to talk about promoting, protecting, and projecting the cause of industry and industrialization.

In 1986, the Collectorate of Central Excise came out with an outlandish new system which it dubbed a simplification of the procedures, but which were more cumbersome and would have resulted in the closure of many factories. Ejaz called a meeting of those industries affected by the new forms. More than 500 industrialists showed up. They rose in arms against this decision of the Collectorate. STRIKE ! they roared.

Ejaz was elected the Chairman of the Action Committee and the industries went on a strike. The SITE Association was on the front page of newspapers all around the country. The strike went on for nine days and the SITE Association office was mobbed by industrialists everyday. The Collector would not budge. Orders were given to crucify Ejaz but he stood firm. We telexed Yasin Wattoo, the then Finance Minister, who was in Washington meeting the World Bank officials, to return to the country and solve this imbroglio. Finally, Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo flew down to Karachi and met the Association representatives. The strike was called off. From then on, the SITE Association and Ejaz Shaffi became forces to reckon with.

In 1988, Ejaz becomes the first industrialist to accept the offer of the government to set up a factory in Gadoon, in NWFP. On August 4, 1988, the Gadoon industrial estate was formally inaugurated and the then Chairman of SITE, Nazim Haji, was invited to give the keynote speech. Ejaz formed the Gadoon Chamber of Industries. Industrialists from all over Pakistan followed this latter-day Pied Piper into this wilderness and Gadoon became a reality.

General Elections 1993 :The scene moves to 1993. The event is the National Elections. The constituency is NA-184, Karachi West. MQM has boycotted the elections. The PML-N candidate is Ejaz Shaffi. The PPP candidate is ex-Senator Masroor Ahsan. The turnout is low, the fight is tough. The final result : Industrialist Ejaz Shaffi routs party activist Masroor Ahsan.

However, PPP formed the government, and this young, principled, and straight-forward person became a rookie in Parliament. Being a newcomer, he was not taken seriously even by his own party’s hierarchy. But time changed all that and he became an important member of the PML(N). On the other front, the losing candidate filed a petition declaring, what else, fraud. Ejaz had to now fight a few more battles. He was in the opposition, he was a novice in the world of politics, and he had a Damocles sword in the shape of an election petition hanging over his head.

The Battle :The case in point is a very interesting one. Grieved over his defeat, Masroor Ahsan filed a petition under Section 36 of the Representation of the People Act, 1976, before the Returning Officer, requesting recounting of the votes. He had received 32,670 votes while Ejaz secured 32,937. The petition was rejected on the grounds that the allegations leveled in it were general, vague, and could hardly provide reasonable justification for recount of votes polled in the entire constituency. The RO confirmed that 722 votes cast were invalid, but, he observed, even if invalid votes were deducted, it would not change the result of the election.

Masroor then filed another petition under Section 103-AA of the Act before the Election Commission for the recount of the votes. This too was rejected. Next day, he filed an Election Petition before the Election Tribunal. During the pendency of this petition, he filed an application seeking recount of the votes. He asserted that the 722 votes be re-examined and that the total votes be recounted. The learned Tribunal passed orders to the Deputy Election Commissioner, Hyderabad, "to scrutinize ballot papers of 722 disputed votes rejected by the RO and to recount the votes in the presence of the contesting parties and / or their representatives."

Ejaz challenged the aforesaid order of the Tribunal in appeal before the Supreme Court which was dismissed on the ground that the appeal against the interim order of the Election Tribunal was not competent. The DEC, Hyderabad rechecked 722 rejected votes and found them rightly rejected by the RO. Nevertheless, on further recount of the votes, he found 625 ballot papers cast in favor of Ejaz and 29 in favor of Masroor as invalid, on account of repeated stamping. The ET, relying on the report of the DEC, set aside the election of Ejaz and declared Masroor as the winning candidate from NA-184.

Aggrieved by the order, Ejaz filed a Civil Appeal before the Supreme Court which was allowed in terms that the decision of the ET was set aside and the case was remanded. Pursuant to the remand order passed by the Supreme Court, the ET again accepted the election petition of Masroor. The relevant portion of the impugned order of the Tribunal is as follows: "There is no independent evidence available on record to show that these double markings on ballot papers were made subsequently after the results of the election were announced. The ballot papers as they stood show that they contained double marking and obviously the same are invalid. (Ejaz’s case is ) that these markings were made after the announcement of the result and, thus, the burden would be on (Ejaz) to prove so. In this view of the matter, I am inclined to hold that the said 625 votes are invalid votes and the same are to be excluded from the votes counted in favor of (Ejaz). Consequently, I find that actual votes cast in favor of (Masroor) are more than the votes secured by (Ejaz). Accordingly, I . . . . . .declare (Masroor) to have been duly elected."

Ejaz then filed a Civil Appeal in the Supreme Court which was heard by the Learned Mr Justice Saleem Akhtar, Learned Mr Justice Manzoor Hussein Sial, and the Learned Mr Justice Mir Hazar Khan Khoso. The advocate of Ejaz, Syed Ifthikar Hussein Gilani, contented that the learned Election Tribunal did not take into account the evidence available on the record which established beyond doubt that the result was validly declared in presence of the candidates / their agents by all the Presiding Officers. He also maintained that Masroor gave no evidence to substantiate that at the time of the count 625 ballot papers were counted in favor of Ejaz, despite having double stamping on them. He argued that the burden of proof laid on Masroor to show that the 625 invalid votes were polled in favor of Ejaz and counted as valid votes. However, there was evidence on record to indicate that at the time of counting only 722 votes were found invalid.

The learned Supreme Court after hearing both the parties and perusing the records stated that "it is, therefore, difficult to assume that at the time of the original count, the Presiding Officer or even the agents of the candidates or even the Returning Officer at the time of consolidation of the result, could not detect the double stamping on not less than 625 votes. Inevitably it leads to an irresistible conclusion that after lapse of six months from the declaration of the result, if some ballot papers had double stamping thereon, it had taken place after and not before the declaration of the result. This being so, the double stamping of the ballot papers to invalidate the valid votes having been done after the declaration of the result, (Ejaz) who had been duly declared elected cannot suffer. The burden of proving the allegation that the result of the count was changed adverse to (Masroor) by counting invalid votes in favor of (Ejaz) heavily lay on (Masroor) and not on (Ejaz), as erroneously construed by the Election Tribunal." The learned Supreme Court rejected the applications moved by Masroor and stated that "tampering with the votes was made subsequent to the declaration of the result of election." The Hon’ble Supreme Court by a majority opinion, declared that Ejaz "continues to be duly elected Member of the National Assembly from Constituency No. NA-184. Karachi, West-1."

The Future : The two year old ordeal of Ejaz Shaffi finally came to an end and he can now continue his work for his constituency and for the City. However, Ejaz is bitter and has decided to go for a Rs 100 million claim against those who deprived his constituents from having absolute representation in the Parliament. More importantly, the perplexing question that just doesn’t drift away is how on God’s earth can a sacred trust such as the election record was somehow tampered with and who committed this crime. Also, why would 625 voters go thru the rigmarole of coming to vote, then go about wasting it by double stamping, and on top of that , every one of these 625 voters stamped in favor of Ejaz and for some other candidate too. Mind-boggling !

There must have been collusion between those who could not bear to see a principled industrialist dedicatedly doing legislative business in the interest of the country. There must have been some sycophants in the ruling party who conspired to go thru with this dastardly action so that a easy way could be made to get rid of the opposition. There must be some people who are out to destroy whatever facade of democracy is prevalent in the country. There must have been some diabolical mind working to ensure that if Ejaz Shaffi is chucked out thru this mechanism, then in future it would be very simple to create democratic upheaval using this case as a precedence.

Ejaz Shaffi suffered heavily. A honest man was accused of chicanery and deceit. A sober gentleman was portrayed as someone who would stoop to the level of a gangster. A person running well-known industries was made a scapegoat by forces out to destroy decency in the country. Ejaz survived this ordeal with his head high. Notwithstanding the fact that one may or may not subscribe to the political ideology of Ejaz or his party, one thing remains the truth. Democracy must prevail and all anti-democratic elements in the political arena must be side-lined immediately. That is something both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif must insist on, must do, and must not succumb to pressures.

Masroor Ahsan is a true party man. It is now upto his leader to provide him with an enviable position befitting his stature. In the meantime, he should accept the result and in the fitness of things should resign from all posts in the party’s hierarchy in Karachi. Ejaz Shaffi should be magnanimous and instead of damages, he should insist for a public apology and for the dismissal of those corrupt officers who tampered with the sacred ballots. He should take comfort in the words of his successor in the SITE Association of Industry, Nazim F. Haji, who on hearing the verdict, simply said : "This is one more proof that there is Allah" !