SHC seeks comments on plea against amendments to local govt laws

Karachi: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed the additional secretary of local government to ensure that comments are filed within four weeks on identical petitions against certain amendments to the local government law.

The direction came on petitions filed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami and others.

The court directed he provincial law officer to ensure that comments were filed before the next date of the hearing. The court observed that the petitions had been pending since last year and no comments had been filed yet. The provincial law officer sought further time to file comments.

The petitioners said the government had introduced certain amendments to the Local Government Act in contravention of Article 140-A of the constitution. They said the provincial 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They submitted that numerous vital functions relating to health and education had been withdrawn wholesale from the ambit of local governments without any rational or justification.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.

The petitioner further argued that the impugned amendments had unlawfully curtailed the election commission’s delimitation powers, and 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 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.