MUZAFFARABAD: After the high court dismissed a petition by two PML-N lawmakers against the election on four vacant seats of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) council, 15 candidates from the ruling PPP, opposition party PML-N, PTI and Muslim Conference (MC) submitted their nomination papers on Monday for the seats in question.

Among other things, the petitioners pleaded that since the legislative assembly’s term was expiring in two-and-a-half months, it should be allowed to elect the four members for the next five years.

However, the larger bench which included Justice M. Tabassum Aftab Alvi, Justice Azhar Saleem Babar and Justice Raja Shiraz Kiani, rejected the plea and said that there was no such constitutional embargo which said that a legislative assembly could not elect, or re-elect, council members within a certain timeframe.

The bench pointed out that under Section 21 clause 4-D of the AJK Interim Constitution Act 1974, elections against a vacant seat in the AJK Council were required to be held within 30 days of the occurrence of the vacancy.

The four members who served on the now vacant seats completed their five-year term on April 20 and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) issued a schedule on April 23.

Therefore, the step taken by the CEC was in accordance with the Constitution, the bench maintained.

Later, an AJK Election Commission spokesman told reporters that 15 candidates, proposed and seconded by members of the legislative assembly, had submitted their nominations before returning officer Mian Naeemullah by 2pm.

These candidates are Akhtar Pervez Awan, Amjad Jalil, Mohammad Younas Mir, Mir Zaman Malik, Idrees Shan, Mehboob Hussain and Mohammad Saghir Khan from the PPP, Arshad Mahmood Ghazi, Azeem Bakhash Chaudhry, Ahsan Manzoor, Zafar Hussain Mirza and Malik Pervaiz Akhtar from the PML-N, Mohammad Mustafa and Mukhtar Ahmed Abbasi from MC and Nisar Ansar from the PTI.

The nominations will be scrutinised on Tuesday and polling will be conducted on May 15.

The AJK Council was created under the AJK Interim Constitution Act 1974 to serve as a “bridge” between Islamabad and Muzaffarabad and is headed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan as its chairman.

The AJK president, the prime minister and the federal minister for Kashmir affairs are its ex-officio members and another five members are nominated by the chairman time and again from among the federal cabinet and parliament.

Apart from these, six members are elected by the AJK Assembly from among the state subjects in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferrable vote and an elected member completes a five-year term, starting from the day he enters his office.

In the current 48-member assembly, which has lately seen some changes in loyalties, PPP as 27 seats, PML-N has 13, MC has 4 and PTI and MQM have two seats each.

Of late, elections for the AJK Council have become somewhat notorious for the involvement of money for gaining a party ticket and also for buying votes in order to grab a lucrative seat, as Rs45 million are placed at the discretion of each member every year for carrying out development activities in AJK and Pakistan, and that too in the absence of a proper accountability or inspection mechanism.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2016