AGP tells top court assembly panel will approve draft bill in next two days. PHOTO: FILE
A bill, proposing amendments to the Cantonments Boards Act 1924, will be presented before the National Assembly for approval in its next session starting on February 24.
Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) Salman Aslam Butt on Friday told this to Supreme Court’s three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jillani.
The bench was hearing a petition filed in 2009 by Cantonment Board Quetta’s former vice president Advocate Raja Rab Nawaz, who had challenged the absence of local government elections in different cantonment boards.
The bench lamented that the LG polls had not been held in cantonment areas for the last 14 years in clear violation of the Constitution.
The AGP Butt told the bench that Standing Committee on National Assembly would approve the draft of bill in the next two days, which would be presented in the assembly in next session.
Meanwhile, the bench also reserved its judgment on the Sindh government’s plea against the Sindh High Court’s decision, declaring the delimitation process, done by provincial government, as null and void.
Earlier, the Sindh government’s counsel Farooq H Naek contended that it was the authority of provincial governments to conduct delimitation process.
The court also admitted a petition for regular hearing against the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) decision, wherein the Punjab government was directed to hold LG elections on party basis. The bench also sought record of the LHC decision and issued notices to all respondents for March 3.
Advocate General Punjab Mustafa Ramday told the bench if the top court gave guidelines about delimitation process, they would implement them.
The petitioner – Advocate Shabbir Asmail through Advocate Azhar Siddique – said the non-party local government elections envisaged in (the now amended) Section 18 of the Punjab Local Government Act were not a new concept. He said local government elections had consistently been held in Pakistan on non-party basis.
The petitioner said that various other countries, including advanced democracies like the US, hold local government polls on non-party basis.
He said the main reason cited for avoiding party-based LG polls was purely service-providing role of local governments, but competitive partisan politics would defeat the very purpose of the exercise.
The petitioner stated a special LHC division bench heard petitions of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and other opposition parties and set aside Section 18 of PLGA-2013 which envisaged non-party polls.
“The impugned judgment has various legal lacunas and does not address complicated questions of interpretation of constitutional provisions of first impression, which had been expressly raised by the opposition parties,” the petitioner claimed.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2014.
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