Petition filed by PTI, JI taken up: IHC issues notice to ECP on LG polls deferral

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday issued notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for deferring local government elections in the federal capital.

The IHC issued the notice after Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir took up a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) seeking to nullify the ECP’s decision to postpone the local government elections in capital.

The IHC also issued a notice to Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan for assisting the court in the hearing.

The plea was filed as the ECP delayed the polls a day earlier after it held a hearing and listened to all the parties involved in the matter, upon the IHC’s orders.

The bone of contention between the political parties, the ECP, and the federal government is that of an increase in the number of union councils, which the centre notified earlier this month.

At the outset of the hearing, the counsel for PTI’s Ali Awan, Sardar Taimoor said the ECP had issued the schedule for local body polls for 50 UCs on June 2.

“The federal government increased the number of union councils to 101. Then, the Election Commission delayed the polls for fresh delimitation,” he said.

Later, the ECP issued a revised schedule for the local body polls on October 22 and in line with the timetable, the elections were supposed to take place on December 21.

He said that as soon as the preparations were done for the polls, the federal government once again increased the number of the UCs.

He added that the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation administrator moved the summary for the new UCs, 12 days back.

“How did the administrator get data that the population increased without a fresh census,” he questioned.

In response, Justice Tahir said the summary to increase the UCs was approved within 24 hours. However, he noted that the prosecution act has not been passed despite repeated notices from the court.

The lawyer then told the court that the government had increased the UCs from 101 to 125 and that once the schedule has been issued, the number cannot be changed.

The PTI lawyer said that the ECP has already spent millions of rupees and that the new legislation which changed the numbers of the UCs should be considered a proposal and not a law since the president has not yet approved it.

Following this, the court served notices to the attorney-general and the ECP as it adjourned the hearing till December 29.

PTI leader Ali Nawaz Awan and Jamaat-e-Islami moved the IHC earlier in the day, seeking to nullify and set aside the ECP’s decision to postpone the local government elections in Islamabad.

Nawaz stated that the order is “violative of Article 75 (3) of the Constitution”.

It also requested to “set aside the notification of increase of Union Councils dated 19-12-2022 (having been issued post announcement of Election Schedule and merely 11 days before the election date, i.e. 31-12-2022).”

The petitioner made the cabinet secretary, the interior secretary, and the ECP parties to the petition.

Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, Metropolitan Corporation, and District Election Commission were also made parties to the petition.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022