KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday dismissed more than five petitions against preliminary delimitations of the national and provincial assemblies’ constituencies in Naushahro Feroze and Jamshoro districts.

The petitioners had challenged the preliminary delimitations of NA-211, NA-212, PS-33, PS-34 and PS-35 constituencies of Naushahro Feroze district and PS-80 and PS-81 constituencies of Jamshoro district.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar in its order ruled that the law provided right to file proposal by means of representation to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for making some changes and modification in the preliminary delimitations, but after considering all cogent factors it was the sole responsibility of ECP to finalise delimitations.

It further observed that there was no variation of population in all constituencies of Jamshoro which was well within allowable variation of 10 per cent.

The ECP also honoured reasonable and sensible proposals placed before it and even in the final delimitation orders the commission directed shifting of some areas form one constituency to another by keeping public convenience, geographical compactness and homogeneity, it added.

Therefore, the order concluded, as per the record available before the bench, it did not find any illegality in the orders of ECP.

Earlier, Syed Jalal Mehmood, Raza Gorar, Syed Mureed Ali Shah and others through their counsel challenged the ECP orders of April 26 and 27, 2018 regarding delimitations.

Petition seeking division of Sindh into seven units dismissed

The Sindh High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking division of the province into seven states or administrative units.

A two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh dismissed the petition for not being maintainable.

The chief justice observed that they could not pass any order in this regard since it was the domain of the parliament to create new provinces or administrative units.

Azmat Wali had petitioned the SHC and contended that the division of the province from an administrative point of view was necessary and would be in the best interest of the province.

The petitioners maintained that Sindh should also be divided into seven autonomous states/administrative units — Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah, Sukkur, Larkana, Dadu and Jacobabad — and each state would be responsible to generate revenue for its expenses and all the management system.

He pleaded to order the federal and provincial governments to divide the territory of Sindh into seven states and Karachi as an independent state to run the administrative matters.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2018