The courts have not announced Salman Akram Raja’s victory

Claim: The courts have declared Salman Akram Raja’s victory. Nawaz Sharif has now lost another seat and he will continue to lose more. 

Fact: The Lahore High Court issued a stay order on the election results from NA-128, Salman Akram Raja’s constituency, according to the court documents obtained by Soch Fact Check. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) also withdrew the notification declaring Aun Chauhdry as the winner on 15 February. Therefore, there was no official winner for NA-128 at the time of publishing this article.

On 10 February 2024, a Facebook post claimed that the courts have declared Salman Akram Raja as the victor, and the notification has been released. Nawaz Sharif has now lost another seat and he will lose more. The post reads:

“سلمان اکرم راجہ کو عدالت نے فتح قرار دے دیا نوٹیفکیشن جاری چور نواز شریف سے ایک سیٹ واپس باقی بھی واپس ہوں گئ۔ انشاءاللہ”

[Salman Akram Raja has been declared as the winner by the courts, the notification has been released. One seat has been recovered from the thief, Nawaz Sharif, and more will be recovered too, if God wills.]

Fact or Fiction?

On 15 January 2024, prominent lawyer, Salman Akram Raja began his official campaign for the General Elections 2024 with a video, announcing that he will be contesting the elections from NA-128 with the electoral symbol of a ‘tennis racket’.

The election on 8 February 2024 was marred by violence from armed groups and the suspension of data and mobile services. After the polls closed  and polling stations were done consolidating their results,  some Returning Officers’ offices were allegedly cordoned off across the country, and candidates seemed unable to be a part of the counting consolidation process.

At 11:07 PM on 8 February, Abuzar Salman Niazi, one of Salman Akram Raja’s colleagues, uploaded a video clip and two images on X, showing bruises on the back of a member of Raja’s legal team, Sameer Khosa. The tweet (archived) was captioned: 

“Aun chaudhry and his 3 dozen goons attacked RO Office Model Town. @SameerKhosa badly injured. After realising he is losing by big lead,the goons have disturbed the counting process. @salmanAraja has been evicted by SP Irtiza from RO Office. Now the ballot boxes and form 45 are at mercy of unknown persons and @OfficialDPRPP. SP Irtiza has said he doesn’t believe on any law and has evicted @salmanAraja from counting process. Shame on @ECP_Pakistan. Police allowed the goons to enter the RO Office and beat everyone. Rigging attempt in at full swing.”

Only a few minutes later Salman Akram Raja shared a video statement on his official X account, updating his voters about the incident. In this statement he can be heard saying:

“Just 15 minutes ago, the RO office for NA-128 Lahore was attacked by twenty-five men bearing batons. And somehow, breaking the police cordon, they entered the vicinity of a school in Model Town where the office was situated. And using this incident, the SP removed me from the location, although as a candidate for this constituency it is my constitutional right to be present inside the RO office when the results submitted by the presiding officers are being consolidated. This is an extremely significant part of the election process and the law gives me and my election agent complete right to be present in the office as long as this process is being conducted. I have been forcefully removed from the premises and now through this tweet I am informing the public. If in my absence, the results are changed, then we will contest them in the public and in the courts but we will not allow any fraudulent activity to take place. The people have spoken, and while I was present the results from 20 to 30% of the polling stations were already finalised and we had a clear lead expanding over the entire constituency. People from every area in this constituency have supported Imran Khan. If this decision is changed then I will present it in the court of the people. We have been informed that we will be allowed back inside in the next 15 minutes but we doubt that this will happen.”

As he was not allowed back inside, Raja and his team filed a constitutional writ petition, requesting the court to issue a stay order for the election results from NA-128. The petitioners for this case were Sameer Khosa, Waqas Ahmed and Abuzar Salman Niazi.

A copy of the petition was provided to Soch Fact Check by Salman Akram Raja’s legal team. The aforementioned details pertaining to this case have been sourced from this document. In the stay order, Judge Ali Baqar Najafi writes, “the Election Commission of Pakistan shall not give effect to the form 47 under Rule 84(4) of provisional consolidated result of NA-128 (Lahore) prepared in absence of the petitioner of his agent. However, the petitioner may be associated for its repreparation by respondent No.1/ Returning Officer of Constituency NA-128 (Lahore).”

This stay order issued by the Lahore High Court was also reported by Dawn.com.  

On 15 February 2024, ECP withdrew the notification which declared Aun Chaudhry as winner. Soch Fact Check spoke to Barrister Sameer Khosa, a part of Salman Akram Raja’s legal team, about recent developments in the case. He told us that the Form 49 issued by the ECP on 15 February was dated 13 February, which indicates that they had issued the notification announcing Chaudhry as a winner even before the Form 49 was issued and hence they ended up withdrawing the notification formally in court. However, this does not mean that the court has declared Raja to be the winner instead, it simply means it is going to take further legal proceedings to reach a conclusion and at this moment there is no official winner of the elections in NA-128.

Virality

The Facebook post received more than 300 interactions and was shared in a group of 28,737 people. 

The same claim was also shared on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. These posts received more than 5000 interactions on Facebook.

Conclusion: Salman Akram Raja has not been declared victor by the court.

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Background image in cover photo: Dawn.com

To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com 

Correction: This article was edited later on the same day it was published to reflect the developments which took place in the Islamabad High Court pertaining to the election in NA-128.