Govt asks SHC to suspend its secret ballot order for two weeks

Karachi

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday sought comments from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional (PML-F) and others on a plea filed by the provincial government requesting the court to suspend its order against the show of hands procedure for electing mayors and other local government office holders in the province. 

The government made the request a day after the high court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to conduct elections to the slots of mayors and deputy mayors through secret balloting. 

The government submitted in its plea that they wanted to move the Supreme Court against the verdict, but they required 15 days for that purpose. 

A high court bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi issued notices to the  petitioners directing them to file their comments at the next hearing. 

On Wednesday after hearing the identical petitions of the MQM and the PML-F, the SHC had directed the ECP to conduct the elections of mayors, deputy mayors, chairmen and vice chairmen through secret balloting. 

The two opposition parties had requested the court to annul the fourth amendment to the Sindh Local Government Bill 2013, binding the members to cast their votes by showing their hands instead of secret voting. 

“The amendment is a violation of Article 266 of Pakistan´s constitution which allows secret polling. The constitution states that all elections, except those of prime minister and chief minister, shall be held through secret balloting; therefore, any procedure held for electing local government (LG) representatives by showing hands will be against the constitution,” they had said in their petitions. 

The Sindh government had claimed that the fourth amendment and other changes to the law were aimed at curbing horse-trading by elected councillors. 

Last week, the Election Commission of Pakistan had postponed local government elections to reserved seats in Sindh. 

The petitioners, including MQM leaders Sardar Ahmed, Khawaja Izharul Hasan and Waseem Akhtar and PML-F MPA Nanand Kumar, submitted that the assembly had passed the Sindh Local Government (Third Amendment) Bill, 2016 on January 18, with amendments to the procedures for the election of the mayor, deputy mayor, chairman, vice chairman and other elected members of union councils and union committees.

The petitioners argued that the amendment was a violation of articles 7, 37(1), 140-A and 219(d) of the constitution, which required the election body to conduct elections of the national and provincial assemblies as well as those for the local governments in a free and fair manner. They further said that the conduct of elections in a manner in which the sanctity of the secret ballot was not prescribed was un-Islamic as well as a violation of the provisions of the constitution.