HYDERABAD, June 23: A member of the Hyderabad District Council has demanded that a meeting of the council should be convened immediately to consider and adopt the budget for 2005-06. In a statement issued here on Thursday, Rana Mehmood Ali Khan of the Al-Khidmat Group said that under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, the district council was intact because it had not been dissolved.

He argued that as per a Sindh government notification, only the district nazim and the naib nazim had been removed.

Under the law, he maintained, the council’s meeting should have been convened within 10 days to elect an acting district nazim and the Election Commission ought to have made arrangements for the election of the nazim within 30 days.

He, however, said both the DCO and the Election Commission had failed to fulfil their legal obligations. As a result, the DCO was using the powers of the district council which, according to him, was illegal.

Mr Khan said there was no legal hitch to convene the budget session because in absence of the naib nazim (convener), senior presiding officer Syed Mohammad Miran Shah could preside over the session.

He rejected the point of view of the DCO that in absence of the district nazim, no other person was authorized to present the budget.

He said that before holding the budget session, a meeting of the district council should be convened to elect the district nazim who should present the budget the next day.

He warned that if the DCO presented the budget in disregard of the law, he himself would be responsible for his illegal act.