Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Thursday said local bodies elections were not held despite being a constitutional requirement. The remarks came during the hearing of a case pertaining to election expenses filed by Workers Party Pakistan president Abid Hasan Minto.
Minto’s petition also seeks to curtail the volume of overall money spent by political parties on election campaigns.
A three-judge bench headed by the chief justice heard the case.
PML-N’s lawyer Rafiq Rajwana told the court that turn out in local government elections remained low and there was the need of legislation for mandatory vote casting. He said that he would ask the PML-N leadership to table a bill in this regard.
Justice Khilji Arif Hussain said hat a person securing 10 to 12 percent votes became legislator. The CJ remarked that the mandatory voting was a noble cause but political parties didn’t do anything despite support it.
The chief justice said Jamshed Dasti was disqualified by the court but he returned with securing 100,000 votes.
He said political parties kept mum over the problems, facing the people, adding that people were still being killed despite court orders. The PML-N lawyer said the elections should be held under the supervision of army and the Frontier Constabulary. He added that local polling staff should not be deployed at the poling stations.
