SHC stops govt from creating new LG constituencies

Karachi
The Sindh High Court issued an interim order on Thursday suspending the implementation of proposals of the provincial election commission for the creation of new local government constituencies till October 19.
The order came at a hearing of a petition filed by the local government secretary, Imran Atta Soomro, who challenged the election commissioner’s proposals.
The election commissioner had asked the government to notify certain areas as new union councils by excluding those areas from one union council and including them in another.
However, the secretary stated in his petition that the recommendations were against the Sindh High Court orders issued in a delimitation case.
He said the creation of new union councils or alterations made by the election commissioner would not only delay the forthcoming local government elections but also make the poll process controversial since the high court had already said that no fresh nominations to contest the polls could be allowed in any council, boundaries of which were revised by the election commissioner.
The provincial election commission had directed the government to undo changes made in a list of constituencies of union councils and wards by changing urban union councils and wards to rural ones.
The secretary said the proposals would affect and delay the election process. He said the polls were scheduled to be held in the province in three phases, on October 31, November 19 and December 3, and the exercise of creating new constituencies, if not stopped now, would serve to disenfranchise the people of that particular area and deprive them of the right to elect their own local government.
Soomro said this would also be a violation of articles 140-A and 25 of the constitution. He maintained that even if fresh nominations were allowed for such areas, the elections would not be held on time since the process of the filing of nomination papers, their scrutiny and the allotment of symbols required at least 24 days.
The secretary requested the court to declare the proposals unlawful and liable to be struck down.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Faisal Arab, after hearing arguments of the petitioner’s counsel, Farooq H Naek, Advocate General Abdul Fatah Malik and representatives of the Election Commission of Pakistan, suspended the impugned proposals till October 19.
The bench directed the election commission and the Sindh government’s counsel to hold a meeting to resolve the objections raised by the local government department over the creation of new constituencies and submit a report by Monday.