Karachi
The Sindh High Court ruled on Tuesday that areas of union councils which were rural and merged into any urban union councils or vice versa through delimitations in violation of high court and Supreme Court directives are of no legal effect, and ordered revised lists be issued after the reversal of such changes in 24 hours.
The court also set aside all revised lists earlier issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for being in violation of its September 18 judgment, and directed the commission to issue new revised lists in such a manner that the second phase of the local government elections scheduled for November 19 would not suffer.
The short order came on identical petitions that challenged a joint report that showed the provincial election commissioner and the local government secretary had decided not to change the status of 23 local bodies’ constituencies in 11 districts despite a court order.
Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Jam Shabbir and Chaudhry Basharat Mehmood, representatives of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, had questioned the alleged agreement between the local government secretary and the election commissioner wherein they decided not to change the status of local constituencies despite a court order in a delimitation case.
Their counsel, Syed Mureed Ali Shah, had submitted that the election authorities had informed the court on October 19 that issues over the delimitation of some union councils had been amicably resolved and polls in only 11 districts would be rescheduled due to the newly created union councils. He had requested the court to declare that the alleged agreement was completely unconstitutional and in violation of the court order.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement also challenged the delimitation process for union councils and committees in Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Sanghar, Tando Allahyar, Tando Jam, Tando Jam and Shahdad Pur, and said that impugned
notifications regarding delimitations of several town and councils were unlawful and aimed to manipulate the electoral college.
Its counsel, Farogh Naseem, submitted that the delimitation was illegal as the union councils and committees were unlawfully inducted into other districts without giving any procedures for such shifting. He submitted that the delimitation process was not conducted by the election commission in light of the guidelines given by the high court on its September 18 judgment and several urban areas were included in rural areas of these councils.
The counsel also questioned creating Municipal Committee Qasimabad by separating it from Hyderabad and submitted that such division was not only a violation of superior court orders but also created divisions on a linguistic basis which also negated the constitutional mandate.
The Sindh government’s counsel, Farooq H Naek, questioned the maintainability of the petitions, and submitted that te election process may not be disturbed. He said the high court had already observed while deciding the petition with regard to the delimitation of constituencies that the aggrieved parties could approach the appropriate forum after the elections. The court after hearing the arguments of the counsel reserved the judgment.
A division bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, which had reserved its order on the petitions, disposed of the petitions in the short order by declaring that areas of union councils which were rural and made part of any councils of urban areas or vice versa through the process of the delimitation in violation of the high court and Supreme Court directives were of no legal effect. The court told the petitioners to adopt the legal procedure after the elections if they had any other kind of grievance regarding the delimitation of the constituencies.