KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday sought the replies from federal and provincial election commissions over a plea seeking to hold local government elections in Sindh.
A division bench headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar ordered Election Commission (EC) to inform the government whether elections for local bodies in the province would be held or not? A representative of EC told the court that tenure of existing local bodies in Sindh would expire on August 30, 2020. "The next election would be held in 120 days at the end of term of existing local government bodies, EC's representative told the court, at which court asked for its written statement in this regard.
The Sindh chief secretary, chief election commissioner, election commission secretary, provincial election commissioner, local government secretary and finance department secretary have been nominated as parties in the plea.
Court adjourned the hearing of the petition for September 08, 2020, which stated that existing local government institutions have completed their tenure and orders should be issued for holding of next local government elections in the province.
Meanwhile, SHC bench showed displeasure over Election Commission and Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) for not furnishing a written statement in a plea against a letter of the provincial election commission for constituting committees for delimitation of local government jurisdictions in Sindh.
A division bench of SHC headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar asked why PBS didn't release the final results of national census and inquired about the passage of time since the holding of last census. "Census was conducted three years back and 2018 general elections were held under this census", PBS representative told the court. He submitted that final results of census would be released after approval of Council of Common Interests (CCI). Court sought the final reply from PBS in the hearing of the case on September 11, 2020.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement - Pakistan (MQM-P) challenged the letter issued on April 14 by the provincial election commission to all the district election commissioners of Sindh for delimitation of union councils, union committees and wards in the town committee and municipal committee for conducting forthcoming local government elections.
MQM-P leaders Amir Khan, Kanwar Naveed Jameel and Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar had filed the petition and submitted that the delimitation exclusively came within the domain of the ECP, but the additional deputy commissioners were included in these committees while the final result of the national census had also not been officially publicized.
Petitioners submitted that the letter dated April 13 and the notification issued on Jan 30 were illegal and unlawful since the same were ultra vires of the Election Act of 2013 and 2017 as well as the judgements of the superior and higher judiciary and pleaded to declare them illegal.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
Comments
Comments are closed.