All petitioners demand the govt hold LG elections based on 1998 census. PHOTO: FILE
After hearing several petitions against the delimitation process of various districts, the Sindh High Court has called for comments by December 17, the next date of hearing. At least 10 petitions have been filed against the rejections of objections against the proposed delimitation of Karachi’s Malir and South districts, Naushero Feroze, Hyderabad, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Tando Allahyar, Benazirabad and others.
Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, who headed the bench, has called for comments from the Election Commission of Pakistan, the provincial chief secretary, the census department secretary and the relevant delimitation officers.
In one of the petitions, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and three other persons — Syed Nasir Abbas, Waseem Ahmed and Muhammad Ramzan — have challenged the proposed delimitation in Malir and South districts, claiming the process violated the provisions of the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013.
According to the MQM, the chief secretary has illegally and without any jurisdiction legislated over the Sindh Local Government Act (SLGA) 2013, whose vires have already been challenged by his party before the Supreme Court on grounds that the law violates Article 140-A of the Constitution.
The party claimed that SLGA 2013 was amended through the Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Act, 2013, on November 2. Section 27 of the amended law clearly stated that the population of union committees has to fall between 10,000 and 15,000. Similarly, the population of the union committees in the metropolitan corporation is between 40,000 and 50,000.
Another amendment was made to section 15 of the SLGA 2013, whereby district councils for Karachi division were omitted. This clearly meant that for Karachi division, only union committees could exist, it claimed. The court was pleaded to declare the notification on the inclusion and exclusion of certain union councils from and into Malir and South districts as illegal. Similar pleas were mentioned in other petitions filed by Syed Mureed Ali Shah, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Sheraz Javed, Muhammad Hanif Qureshi, Syed Sharif Mirbehar and Atif Iqbal. They claimed the district authorities have proposed delimitation of the electoral constituencies in Naushero Feroze, Tando Allahyar, Shaheed Benazirabad, Qambar-Shahdadkot and others by excluding various union councils from one area to the other without following the criteria laid down for the purpose.
Most importantly, the required population strength is being ignored in the cases of both including and excluding the union councils from one union committee to the other. They have pleaded the court declare the process illegal and order the authorities conduct local government elections on the basis of the previous population census conducted in 1998.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 11th, 2013.
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