Raising concerns: PHC to hear petitions against Local Government Act on April 23

Two-member bench rejects request to stay election for village, neighbourhood councils.

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court will once again hear three petitions on Thursday which challenge various sections of the K-P Local Government Act 2013 which allow elections in village and neighbourhood councils on a non-party basis.

A two-member bench of Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Qalandar Ali Khan adjourned the hearing of three petitions filed by ANP MPA Sardar Hussain Babak, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s Abdul Jalil Jan and Malgari Wakeelan, a lawyers association of ANP, till April 23. This was done because Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa advocate general, who was expected to appear before the court, was not available on Tuesday.

During the hearing, Abdul Latif Afridi, counsel for the petitioner, informed the court local bodies’ elections in other provinces are held on party-basis. However, the provincial government had decided that elections for village and neighbourhood councils would be contested on a strictly non-party basis. According to the counsel, this is a form of discrimination and the court should stay election for both village and neighbourhood councils across the province until the petitions have been decided.

Justice Khan questioned whether a stay order can be issued in this regard. Justice Hilali raised similar concerns, saying the court was not authorised to issue an interim relief since certain provisions of the act were being challenged. Similarly, Additional Advocate General Qaiser Ali Shah said the Supreme Court has urged the K-P government to hold LG polls.

The court then adjourned the hearing till April 23.

ANP leaders, including Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Afrasiab Khattak, Bushra Gohar and JUI-F leader Abdul Jalil Jan were present in court.

Unfair burden

According to a petition filed by Babak, the government has created thousands of village and neighbourhood councils. This will impose an unnecessary burden on K-P’s economy and also increase the likelihood of horse-trading, it added.

The petition states it would be undemocratic for parties to contest elections on a party-basis for the tehsil and district levels when they will be stopped from taking part in village and neighbourhood council elections.

Babak has also challenged the provision of the act which empowers the chief minister to suspend a nazim of a local council, saying these powers should be vested with the body which elects a nazim.

According to the petition, both provisions create two different systems of conducting polls within a single legislation. “This is against the provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1976,” stated the petition.

Previous requests

On April 8, PHC had dismissed a petition which sought to restrain the provincial government from holding LG elections on the basis of delimitation carried out by the government. The petitioner, Khushdil Khan, said the provincial government had enacted the 2013 Act and constituted an authority for delimiting village councils, neighbourhood councils and territorial wards for general seats of tehsil, town and district councils.

He added the delimitation of local councils was carried out in all districts of the province and the exercise was completed by the Peshawar DC in the district. Khan requested the court to bring the LG law in conformity with constitutional provisions and restrain the government from conducting elections on the basis of the delimitation.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2015.