Disputed delimitations: petitioners told to identify areas of concern

Karachi
The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday directed petitioners who had challenged the delimitation process to specifically name areas included in more than one constituency after examining the maps of their respective districts.
The directives were given by the court while hearing identical petitions filed against delimitation of local bodies constituencies in various union committees and councils of Sindh.
The petitioners’ stated that authorities did not adhere to the delimitation laws and population criteria, while several irregularities were committed by officers during the process.
They maintained that delimitation of constituencies should have been conducted in accordance with the administrative boundaries in order to have avoided several parts of one district to be included in another.
SHC’s division bench headed by Chief Justice Faisal Arab directed the petitioner to approach the election commission office and point out the areas after examining districts’ maps, the hearing was adjourned for Tuesday.
With the oncoming of the local bodies elections, the election commission of Pakistan (ECP) has time and again been summoned to court to redress a variety of complaints filed by the stakeholders.
The ECP, returning officers and other respondents were yet again issued a notice on Thursday by the Sindh High Court (SHC) on non-acceptance of nomination papers of candidates.
Petitioner Riaz Hussain Sherazi and others maintained that returning officers of the Thatta district refused to accept their nomination papers allegedly due to political influence. Their counsel Mureed Ali Shah complained of appeals, against non-acceptance of papers, not being entertained by the district returning officer. The court, today, also heard another petition filed by the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) challenging delimitation of local bodies’ constituencies of Malir and Mehmoodabad.
In a previous hearing, their counsel Farogh Naseem had argued that authorities did not adhere to the delimitation laws and population criteria. He maintained that administrative boundaries were overlooked by delimitation officials because of which several parts of districts Korangi and Malir were incorporated in each other. The ECP had already been issued notices, on September 19, on several identical petitions filed by the MQM and others challenging the process of delimitation of constituencies.
The SHC had observed that functionaries of the ECP did not adhere to the guidelines for maintaining territorial unity, distinction between urban and rural areas in several constituencies while carrying out delimitation of local bodies’ constituencies.
Issuing a short order on petitions against the delimitation process of the constituencies, the SHC’s division bench headed by Chief Justice Faisal Arab had observed that the changes in boundaries of constituencies appeared to have been conducted in an arbitrary manner to “facilitate gerrymandering”.
The bench observed that since election dates had been announced, to be able to correct only the patent irregularities without disturbing the polling schedule, only such alterations and modifications should be allowed in constituencies in which the ECP had acted arbitrarily and expeditiously in exercise of its power conferred under Section 10 (A) of the Delimitation of Constituencies Act, by only looking at the existing boundaries of a disputed constituency.
The court made it clear that since the process of local government elections was to be completed on the schedule already announced in terms of Supreme Court judgment, the dates of polling under no circumstances shall be disturbed.
However, the court pointed out that the initiation of the process of delimitation of the constituencies for local government election through notifications issued by the provincial government under Section 10 of the SLGA 2013 and 10(3) was within its confines and not a violation.