The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) has ordered the centre and provinces to complete legislation pertaining to Local Bodies (LB) elections in five months and conduct the polls maximum by November 15.
The order states that the power to hold LB polls and delimitation lies only with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), and not with provincial governments.
The three-member bench headed by chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani issued verdict in the case pertaining to LB polls in Sindh and Punjab on Wednesday.
Earlier during the hearing, the Punjab government had sought four months from the SC for holding LB elections in the province.
Punjab Advocate General (AG) Mustafa Ramdy submitted a report pertaining to timeframe for the LB polls in the apex court. As per the report, the elections will be completed in 10 stages.
“It would take four months to prepare the legal draft bill and delimitation of constituencies for the LB elections,” the AG Punjab prayed in the court.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, in his short order said that the power to hold elections of the local government stands vested in the ECP. He said since the delimitation of constituencies of the local government is part of the process of organising and holding elections honestly, justly and fairly, which is the Constitutional mandate of the ECP, the power to carry out such delimitation should vest with the ECP as well.
The apex court ordered that the ECP ensure that the announcement of election schedule and the process of holding it is complete by or before of November15, 2014.
he me6m gl�}�{ year from interrogations of men involved in the attack, the report said.
At the meeting, Bin Laden rejected Akhtar’s request for help and urged him and other militant groups not to fight Pakistan but to serve the greater cause — the jihad against America. He warned against fighting inside Pakistan because it would destroy their home base: “If you make a hole in the ship, the whole ship will go down,” he had said.
According to the report Bin Laden said that Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and the Indian Ocean region would be Al Qaeda’s main battlefields in the coming years, and that he needed more fighters from those areas. He even offered naval training for militants, saying that the United States would soon exit Afghanistan and that the next war would be waged on the seas.
Pakistani intelligence sources termed allegations made in The New York Times report as baseless, stating that no one was aware of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts.
