KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday turned down a plea of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) for an urgent hearing of its petition challenging an Election Commission of Pakistan notification regarding delimitation of local government constituencies in Sindh.

The SHC bench, headed by Justice Khadim Hussain Sheikh, which took up the application calling for urgent hearing, remarked that the High Court cannot grant a stay order against the process of delimitation.

Advocate Obaidur Rehman, representing the petitioners, contended before the bench that the MQM-P being a political party would suffer losses in the local body elections because of new delimitations, insisting on an early hearing of the petition.

The SHC bench, however, said the case may involve lengthy arguments due to which it was not possible for the court to hear and decide the petition during the High Court's summer vacations.

MQM-P leaders, Amir Khan, Kunwar Naveed Jamil and Wasim Akhtar, through their counsel, challenged the ECP notification, stating that delimitation exclusively fell within the ambit of the ECP, but additional deputy commissioners had been included in committees for delimitation for local government constituencies.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020