Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday has disposed of suo moto notice on federal government’s assurance of conducting population census from March 15 next year.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali heard the case in which, Additional Attorney General guaranteed the court to complete the census process till May 2017.
Earlier, CJP had pronounced that democratic system highly depends upon population census, however; if it is not held then the election would be nothing more than a joke.
“There is vast difference between 1998 and today’s population. Police are being made without having any record of the exact number of people in the country,” he said.
“From the current scenario it seems that the government has no intention of holding a population census,” he asserted.
The last census was carried out in 1998 when the population was counted at 132 million people.
It is since believed to have crossed the 200 million mark, an estimate based on figures from yearly growth statements issued by the country’s statistics bureau and survey work, making Pakistan the sixth most populous country in the world.
The census would cost 14.5 billion Pakistani rupees ($145 million) with the preliminary findings available in June 2016 and the final results issued in December 2017.
Pakistan was due to conduct a census in 2008 and 2010 but political unrest, conflict, and natural disasters contributed to delays.
The census is also a sensitive issue politically because it determines the amount of development budget allocated to each of the country’s provinces.
