Contempt notices issued to AJK prime minister, top officials

The high court on March 6, 2015 had directed conducting LG polls within six months

MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir High Court (AJKHC) on Thursday issued contempt of court notices to top government officials for not conducting local bodies’ elections in the state. It has been over 24 years since last local government elections were conducted in the region.

On March 28, 2014 court had directed the then AJK Chief Secretary Khyzer Hayat Gondal and Local Government Secretary Muhammad Sadiq Dar to submit their responses on the issue till May 7, 2014, which they did not.

In the next hearing on March 6, 2015 the court once again reminded the top officials of the AJK government to conduct the LG polls within six months.

Due to failure of the AJK government to conduct the LG polls within the directed period, the court issued contempt of court notices to top officials of the region.

The notices were issued on a petition filed by senior lawyer Raja Sajjad Ahmed Khan for not conducting LG elections in the region since 1991.

The AJKHC issued the notices to Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, Senior Minister Muhammad Yaseen, Chief Secretary Abid Ali, the Election Commission Local Bodies, and Local Government Secretary Irshad Qurashi .

The petitioner has contended that holding LG elections after every four years is a constitutional requirement in every democratic state and country.

Khan, while talking to the media said that for the last 24 years the people of the area had been kept deprived of this fundamental right to elect their local representatives, which was an open violation of the Interim Act 1974 of the AJK Constitution.

“Through the local bodies elections people elect their representatives at the union council and wards levels to get their basic problems solved,” Khan maintained.

Currently administrators and chairmen of development authorities in all ten districts of the AJK are running the affairs of all the local bodies.

“Nobody knows under which law they have been appointed and how they are using millions of rupees from the exchequer,” Khan said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th,  2015.