The Supreme Court hearing the ongoing election petition has sustained an objection raised by counsel for petitioners, Philip Addison against the tendering in of a pink sheet, “ID1 Asokwa” by Tsatsu Tsikata, counsel for the National Democratic Congress.
Tsikata said the sheet confirmed their claim of bad faith as raised in their affidavits and during the cross-examination of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, star witness of the petitioners.
They were using the pink sheet from Asokwa constituency in the Ashanti region to buttress claims that irregularities, as pleaded by the petitioners, also occurred in the stronghold of the petitioners, but results from there were ignored.
Counsel for the NDC, who is also examining Mr Asiedu Nketia on behalf of the first respondent, Tsatsu Tsikata asked the witness to first identify the document, which he did.
His question bothering on the relevance of the document to the case was overruled by the court after it was objected to by the lead counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison.
He said the attempt by Tsatsu was in disregard of the court directive on 2nd April, 2012 which said all parties were to attach their documents to their affidavits to allow opposing counsel to scrutinise it.
He said the petitioners have done this, but third respondent, Tsikata had not.
“It is not part of their case. We have closed our case and we are now being confounded by fresh documents,” he argued.
Mr Tsikata argued that the order allowed documents deemed relevant to be tendered during proceedings. Tsatsu also said that yesterday the petitioners were allowed to tender a list of 704 polling stations. This list was not part of their affidavits, but the judges allowed it because of its relevance, he argued.
The same should be accorded them because this document was relevant- it is a particular polling station, he said.
Addison said the list of 704 polling stations tendered yesterday was part of their original number of polling stations and was included in the Further and Better particulars.
According to him, relevancy is not the issue, complying with the court order was.
After a few minutes of deliberation, the court sustained the objection.
Source: GhanaWeb
