ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) challenged in the Supreme Court on Saturday the appointment of the Gilgit-Baltistan chief election commissioner (CEC), contending that as he was ‘unsuitable’ for the office because of his alleged close association with the ruling PML-N.

The petition, filed by PTI’s Member of National Assembly Ghulam Sarwar Khan and local leader Akbar Hussain Akbar and MWM’s office-bearer Raja Nasir Abbas through their counsel Asaf Vardaq, alleged that the region’s CEC retired Justice Tahir Ali Shah was a committed PML-N worker. The petitioner alleged that any elections held under his watch could not be expected to be free, fair, impartial and transparent.

The appointment was notified on Nov 20 and the next elections in Gilgit-Baltistan are scheduled for March.

The region’s CEC, the federal government, the ministry of Kashmir affair and GB and the Gilgit-Baltistan Council chairman through the principal secretary to the prime minister are respondents in the joint petition.

The petitioners requested the court to declare the appointment as illegal and order the respondents to appoint a new CEC by consulting all parties, especially the leaders of the house and the opposition in the GB assembly as is done in Pakistan under the Constitution.

They said it would be “most damaging internally and externally, nationally and internationally” if elections in the region appeared to be other than free, fair and impartial.

They said the appointment had been made arbitrarily and unilaterally by the prime minister, whose party held two seats in the GB assembly, without following the required process of consultation and none of the other stakeholders had been consulted.

Published in Dawn December 14th , 2014