Bench orders completion of preparations for LG polls within 5 months
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the decision of the Sindh High Court pertaining to delimitation of constituencies and rejected an application filed by the Sindh government in this regard.
In its short order, a three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Tassaduq Hussain Jilani and comprising Justices Khilji Arif Hussain and Sheikh Azmat Saeed, said all preparation for local government elections should be completed within five months’ time and that the schedule for holding the polls should be announced in November. The court added that the absence of municipal polls for the past five years was compounding the problems faced by the public.
The order stated that delimitation of constituencies and holding elections was the responsibility of the Election Commission of Pakistan.
“We are persuaded to direct the governments, federal and provincial (of Sindh) to carry out appropriate amendments/legislation to empower the ECP to initiate and carry out the process of delimitation of constituencies for the local government election,” the CJP said.
On Jan 19, the Sindh government had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry against a ruling of the SHC that had declared unlawful the delimitation carried out before the still pending local government polls in the province.
Advocate General Sindh Khalid Jawed Khan had filed the petition on behalf of the provincial government, challenging the high court’s judgment of Dec 2013.
He had said that the SHC had no lawful authority or jurisdiction to pass an order regarding the local government elections which had been scheduled for Jan 18 this year through a ruling issued by the Supreme Court.