The Supreme Court on Thursday issued directives to the government to include a column for the disabled and the transgender in the population census form. Disposing of a plea, seeking inclusion of a column relating to the disabled in the census form, a three-member bench led by the Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar directed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to implement the Lahore High Court is verdict in the matter.
On March 15, Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court asked the federal government and the PBS to amend the population census form by including a column for the disabled in the country.
Advocate Raheel Kamran Sheikh had filed a petition on behalf of six individuals with disabilities under Article 184(3) of the Constitution seeking the apex court's directives to all the concerned departments to ensure collection of necessary data on the incidence of disability, ensuring proper identification of persons with disabilities, documenting impairments and categorising types, causes, duration and severity of the disabilities.
On March 14, a three-member bench of Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar asked the government to explain the reasons behind the exclusion of a column on the disabled from the census form.
Resuming the hearing of the matter on Thursday, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nasir asked the chief statistician Asif Bajwa about steps taken to include the disabled in the population census form. Responding to the court's query, Bajwa submitted that Form 2-A was being used in the current headcount exercise and a separate green form would be issued to gather information about the disabled and transgender after three months of the ongoing census.
Bajwa said the reason behind the non issuance of two different forms was the lack of manpower and the short duration (ten days) of availability of the army personnel; hence it was not possible to collect data on both forms in one go.
Bajwa further submitted that during adjudication of a case in 2012 the apex court had issued directives to include a column for the transgender in the census form whereas the census forms had already been printed in 2007.
Later the bench disposed of the matter.