Contempt proceedings: Court seeks reasons for delay in delimitation of constituencies

Petitioner alleges that election commissioners were ‘deliberately’ ignoring the court’s directions.

KARACHI: The Sindh advocate general was issued a notice on Tuesday by the Sindh High Court to explain why the court’s orders regarding delimitation of the electoral constituencies in Naushero Feroze have not been implemented. 

Politician Syed Mureed Ali Shah approached the court to seek contempt proceedings against the chief and provincial election commissioners, alleging they were deliberately ignoring the directions issued by the high court to redraw the district’s constituency ahead of the next general elections. The orders were given on April 19, 2012

In his petition, Shah submitted that the district, which according to the 1981 census has a population of 828,975 people, was bifurcated on November 5, 1989.



In 1990, the then caretaker prime minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi allegedly influenced the delimitation process in his own interests, claims Shah. The election commission does not have the updated record of the current official figures of the population to proceed with the application to redraw the voting boundaries, the petitioner’s lawyer stated.

Shah recalled that on April 19, the Sindh High Court, while disposing of his petition, had directed the chief election commissioner and provincial election commissioner to redraw the constituency of Naushero Feroze.

“While the objections and proposals from the general public as well as the elected representatives from the area were received and the case was sent to the chief election commissioner for its final order to redraw the constituencies, nothing concrete has been done so far,” the petitioner complained to the judges on Tuesday.



He pleaded to the judges to initiate contempt proceedings against the chief and provincial election commissioners for flouting the court’s directions.

After hearing initial arguments, the bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqir, issued notice to the chief and provincial election commissioners to file their comments by March 15 explaining why the court’s directions had not been implemented.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2013.