Problem solved? SHC dismisses MQM’s delimitation plea

The UCs were drawn afresh after the party's first complaint

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) dismissed on Wednesday petitions filed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) against the delimitation of the local government constituencies in different districts, as the provincial government assured that irregularities have been removed while redrawing fresh electoral boundaries.

The petition was dismissed by a division bench, headed by SHC Chief Justice Faisal Arab, which is hearing matters related to the delimitation of the constituencies in the province ahead of the local government elections.

MQM leaders including MNA Farooq Sattar, MPA Syed Sardar Ahmed and others had challenged the delimitation process for union councils and committees in Korangi and Mirpurkhas districts on the grounds that the new UCs and committees were created by including and excluding the urban and rural areas in disproportion of the population.

They had alleged that the notifications regarding the delimitation of several towns and councils were unlawful because they aimed to manipulate the vote bank.

According to their lawyer, Farogh Naseem, the exercise of delimitation was illegal since the union councils and committees were unlawfully merged into other districts without any proper procedures.

They had argued that the delimitation process was not conducted by the Election Commission of Pakistan while several urban areas had been included in the union council's rural areas. They had also accused the provincial government of redrawing the electoral boundaries in an illegal manner and of demonstrating partiality for its own political benefits.

Objecting to the procedures, the MQM leaders had argued that the provincial government had fixed the number of UCs in each district according to their own preferences instead of considering the population. "In some union councils the population stands at 45,000 while in some other UCs it stands at 4,000," the lawyer had pointed out.

The court was therefore pleaded to declare the whole process illegal and order the government to conduct polls on the basis of the old delimitation.

On September 18, the SHC bench had struck down the process of delimitation in various districts. It had also directed the authorities to redraw UCs afresh in respect to the objections raised by the petitioners.

During Wednesday's proceedings, the provincial law officer informed the court that in compliance with the court's earlier judgment, notifications for the fresh delimitation of the UCs had been issued. Producing a copy of the notification, the officer maintained that all the objections raised by the petitioners regarding the new UCs had been addressed in the fresh procedure.

To the population criteria, the law officer contended that there is no such criteria prescribed in the relevant laws for creating new UCs. In view of the law officer's statement, the SHC bench dismissed the petitions.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2015.