ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan plainly informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it could schedule local government elections only after the attending prerequisites were completed.

A reply filed on behalf of the ECP by senior counsel Akram Sheikh listed features like completion of delimitation process, necessary changes in laws and election rules, door-to-door verification by the ECP, preparation of fresh electoral rolls by Nadra and provinces, procurement of election materials by the commission and printing of ballot papers by the Printing Corporation of Pakistan and the Security Printing Corporation.

The ECP is of the opinion that these measures would take at least four months to complete.

But a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry which had taken up a case relating to LG elections was not satisfied with the reply and observed that the ECP was not interested in honouring the constitutional requirement of holding the elections in the country, including the Islamabad Capital Territory.

The court asked Additional Attorney General Shahkhawar to state what would be the consequences if the obligatory commands of the constitution under Article 140(A) were not followed.

Mr Shahkhawar said that soon after coming into power four months ago the federal and provincial governments had immediately started implementing the Supreme Court’s order as well as meeting the constitutional requirement.

“Therefore, any delay should not be misconstrued as a wilful default, defiance or a bad intention because the issue has been at the top of the priority agenda of the governments,” he said, adding that none of the governments was refusing to hold the elections.

But the court wondered whether the person (government functionary) giving instructions to the AAG understood the implications of not obeying the commands of the constitution when under Article 5 everybody was bound to abide by the green book.

Mr Shahkhawar requested the court to exercise judicial restraint and said that none of the governments had any intention to violate any provision of the constitution.

Representatives of Balochistan and Punjab informed the court that they had completed their homework and were ready to hold elections by Dec 7.

The court praised the Sindh government’s statement that it would positively hold elections by Nov 27.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that homework had been completed but passage of the law governing the LG elections would take some days.

ECP’s counsel Akram Sheikh said no provincial legislature could command or entrust with a constitutional body like ECP one or more of its functions or duties because that would be a violation of constitutional provisions like Articles 213 to 218.

The commission regretted that the provinces had hastily carried out delimitation of local councils and wards on the basis of old census blocks when the latest housing census done by the Statistics Division in 2011 had indicated an increase in census blocks from 102,000 to 140,000. The May 11 general elections, it said, were held on the basis of new census blocks.

“Therefore, holding of LG elections on the dates suggested by the provinces will become incompatible with the delimitation carried out by them, especially when Nadra will not be in a position to prepare fresh electoral rolls unless a door-to-door verification exercise is carried out again to reconcile electoral rolls with the delimitation carried out on old census. Any such exercise for preparing fresh electoral rolls by the ECP would require at least two to three months under the Electoral Rolls Act 1974,” the ECP reply said.

Highlighting the enormity of the task of holding the election, the commission said it had printed 180 million ballot papers for the May 11 general elections and faced difficulties in supplying them to returning officers in the available 20 days.

For local government elections, the ECP will have to print and distribute about 600 million ballot papers.

The case will be taken up on Friday.