KARACHI, Sept 18: The Awami Himayat Tehrik has moved the Sindh High Court, seeking amendment in Section 5 and 6 of the Conduct of General Election Order 2002 to bring the same in conformity with the Article 51 of the constitution.

The petitioner, Syed Saghirudduin, Rana Fazil Hussain and Govind Tipu Patel, chairman of party’s minority wing, submitted in the petition that number of seats for non-muslims are to be fixed/ reserved in the general elections as per Article 51.

They maintained that section 5 and 6 of the Conduct of General Election Order 2002 did not provide any criteria in respect of reservation of various minorities, including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Qadianis as required under Article 51 and 106 of the constitution.

The petitioner prayed to the court to direct the election authorities to amend the Conduct of General Election Order 2002.

It was further prayed that a direction be issued to Election Commission “to postpone the general elections-2002 scheduled to be held on October 2002 and time for holding of the elections may be extended till the amendment in Rule 3 of the Representation of People’s (Conduct of Election) Rules 1977”. The petition is likely to come up for hearing early next week.

Order reserved: Justice Mohammed Moosa K. Leghari on Wednesday reserved judgement in a suit for recovery filed by the Gulf Air against the travel agents.

The plaintiff maintained that it provided blank air tickets of the airlines to the defendants who issued tickets to travellers from June 16, 1996 to June 31, 1996 worth Rs 534,000.

The defendants who claimed to be the members of the IATA failed to make the payment to the airline against which it filed a suit in 1998.

When the suit came up for hearing, the counsel for the plaintiff submitted arguments while no one appeared for the plaintiff after which the bench reserved the judgement.

Meanwhile, another bench of SHC, comprising Justice Shabbir Ahmed and Justice Azizullah Memon, issued rule nisi while hearing a habeas corpus application.

Amin Mallah moved the court alleging that his father Mohsin Mallah and uncle Jarooh Mallah were detained by the Thatta Police on a complaint by father of petitioner’s wife.—APP