Supreme Court trashes Sindh govt’s ‘time-barred’ plea

The appeal against the high court order was filed 17 days after its stipulated time, judges observe.

KARACHI: The Sindh government’s appeal against a court order to hold local body elections in three months has been rejected by the Supreme Court as it was filed after the stipulated time.

On May 18, the Sindh High Court had ordered the provincial government to hold local bodies elections within 90 days. The election commission was also directed to announce the election schedule.

The high court had passed the orders on the petitions filed by former district nazims and a social welfare activist, who alleged that the provincial government had not held the elections for the past three years citing amendments to local body election laws.

The Sindh government challenged, however, the high court’s verdict in the Supreme Court, stating that elections could not be held in the given schedule because polling requirements, including delimitation of talukas and districts, and preparation of computerised voter lists, were not finalised.

“It will be difficult to hold elections in view of the unprecedented floods and the volatile law and order situation in Sindh, where the battered infrastructure has yet to be rebuilt in some districts,” the provincial chief secretary wrote in his appeal.



The next general elections were due in the first quarter of the next year and it will be appropriate to hold the local bodies elections after the general election, the appellant stated.

On November 27, the judges had observed that the appeal was filed 17 days after the lapse of the stipulated period to appeal. The additional advocate general (AAG) was directed to reply to the court on this point.

On Thursday, AAG Adnan Karim Memon argued that the appeal could not be filed in time as they had been waiting for a detailed judgment. He appealed to the apex court to set aside the high court order.

Dissatisfied with his arguments, the three-member apex court bench, headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, dismissed the government’s appeal, stating that the appeal was “time-barred”.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2012.