KARACHI, April 12: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Friday informed the Sindh High Court that the electoral lists for the 13 recently delimited constituencies of the National Assembly and the Sindh Assembly in Karachi had already been sent to Islamabad for printing.

A division bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar was seized with the hearing of an application of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement against the printing of voters’ lists for the recently delimited constituencies.

The application was filed by MQM leader Advocate Farough Naseem, who asked the court to restrain the ECP from getting the voters’ lists of the redrawn constituencies, as any change in the electoral lists was void and illegal after the start of the election process.

The applicant submitted that the MQM had already challenged the redrawing of the constituencies in the SHC that reserved the judgement on its petition after hearing the final arguments from the two sides.

He said he watched a report on DawnNews to the effect that the ECP sent the voters’ list for Karachi for printing in terms of the delimitation notification.

The counsel stated that the ECP had already announced on March 17 the final electoral list, therefore, any change in it would be illegal. He stated that any step towards printing of electoral lists would influence the delimitation case.

The ECP had issued a notification on March 22, announcing delimitation of three National Assembly constituencies (NA- 239, 250 and 254) and eight Sindh Assembly constituencies (PS-89, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118 and 124) in Karachi.

On Monday, ECP law officer Abdullah Hanjrah informed the court that the impugned voters’ list had been sent to Islamabad for printing. However, he said, he did know if the printing of electoral list had started.

The bench ordered that it would pass an appropriate order on the next hearing after the ECP law officer informed it about the commencement of process of printing of the voters’ list.

The bench put off the hearing to a date to be later announced by the court office.

Students’ admit cards case

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Mushir Alam directed the Sindh education and literacy secretary to immediately initiate action against those schools that failed to submit examination forms of their respective students in time despite receiving enrolment and examination fees.

The direction came on a petition of Mohammad Hussain and Ghulam Farooq, against their school that did not submit the examination forms of 149 students, including the petitioners.

The petitioners stated that their school administration failed to submit their exam forms to the Board of Secondary Education Karachi as its clerk, Abdul Karim, took away the examination forms and fees totalling Rs142,950.

The Chakiwara SHO submitted that the school principal had filed a complaint against the clerk, but the principal was not following the case, he said.

The bench directed the BSEK to provide details of such schools to the education secretary who would immediately launch action against them.

The bench adjourned the hearing to April 30.

Election appeals

The election tribunal headed by Justice Faisal Arab allowed as many as 38 election appeals against the rejection of nomination papers by the returning officers.

The tribunal, which heard as many as 76 election pleas against the acceptance and rejection of nomination papers, also dismissed 11 appeals against the acceptance of nomination papers.