SHC seeks comments on plea against amendments to LG laws

The Sindh High Court on Monday directed the additional secretary of local governments to ensure that comments were filed on identical petitions against certain amendments to local government laws within four weeks.

The direction came during a hearing of petitions filed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami and others against certain amendments to the local government laws.

The court directed the additional secretary, who sought further time to file comments, to ensure that comments were filed with an advance copy to the counsel of the petitioner and he also appeared on December 20.

The petitioners said that the provincial government had introduced certain amendments to the Local Government Act in contravention of Article 140-A of the constitution. They said the government had usurped several departments of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, including health, hospitals and education, in the garb of the new amendments in sheer violation of the constitution, which emphasised the devolution of powers to local governments.

They submitted that numerous vital functions relating to health and education had been withdrawn wholesale from the ambit of local governments without any rational or justification. They said the withdrawal of medical colleges and teaching hospitals from the KMC’s management was a key example of the patently arbitrary and mala fide nature of the changes made in the law.

They argued that the impugned changes had unlawfully curtailed the election commission’s delimitation powers, saying that such restrictions were arbitrary and in violation of Article 140-A of the constitution.

They submitted that the amendments had inexplicably bound the elections commission to conform to a delimitation exercise carried out more than six years ago, which preceded even the latest census conducted in 2017. They said the only conceivable motive for such a restriction appeared to be in pursuance of gerrymandering or some other scheme designed to distort the process of the fair local bodies elections.

They further submitted that Karachi has a population of more than 30 million and needs a proper and empowered metropolitan corporation instead of a powerless city district government. The court was requested to declare amendments to sections 14 (I)(a) 14 (3)(b) and (c), 14(III)(d)(I) to (III) and 17 (a) (b) of the Sindh Local Government Amendments Act as unconstitutional.