KARACHI: The Sindh High Court was informed on Wednesday that the final results of the 2017 national census had been sent to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and would be published after its approval.

However, a federal law officer sought time to get proper instructions from the authorities concerned on this issue and would inform the SHC accordingly on Sept 11.

When the two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar took up a petition of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan against the constitution of committees for delimitation of local government jurisdictions in Sindh for hearing, the lawyers and officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Sindh local government department and other respondents sought time to file their respective comments.

The bench also directed the deputy attorney general and the additional advocate general to file comments on behalf of the federal and provincial authorities concerned impleaded as respondents in the petition by next hearing.

ECP pledges to hold local bodies’ elections within 120 days

Joint census commissioner Khawaja Mazhar Jamal was also present during the proceedings and the bench asked him that when the final results of census would be published.

He submitted that the final results had already been forwarded to the CCI for approval and would be announced after the endorsement from the CCI.

The bench adjourned the matter till Sept 11, after deputy attorney general Kafeel Abbasi requested for time to seek proper instructions on the statement made by the joint census commissioner.

MQM-P leaders Amir Khan, Kunwar Naveed Jamil and Wasim Akhtar had filed the petition and challenged a letter of the provincial election commission for constituting committees for delimitation and contended that the exercise of delimitation could not be carried out unless the final results of census were officially published.

The petitioners submitted that the letter issued on April 14 by the election commission of Sindh to all the district election commissioners of Sindh for delimitation of union councils, union committees and wards in the town committees and municipal committees for holding local government elections while the ECP had also issued a notification on Jan 30 for delimitation of wards in 42 cantonment boards across the country.

They mainly relied on Section 17 of the Elections Act, 2017 in which the commission shall delimit constituencies after every census officially published and in the same section powers have been given to the commission to delimit the territorial constituencies for elections to the National Assembly and each provincial assembly and to the local government in accordance with the provision of the Constitution.

The lawyer for the petitioners argued that no final census report had been published, but reliance had been made on the provincial census report.

Local bodies’ polls

The same bench was informed on Wednesday in another petition regarding local bodies’ elections that the tenure of the local government was expiring on Aug 30 and the ECP would conduct elections within 120 days in Sindh.

ECP law officer Abdullah Hanjra said that the local government was completing its tenure in the province on Aug 30 and contended that the ECP would hold new elections within four months. However, he sought time to submit a statement duly singed by the competent authority at the next hearing.

The bench observed that many opportunities had already been given to the ECP to file its reply, but it failed to do so despite court orders.

Provincial election commissioner Mohammad Jawed Khan was also present in court and he adopted the statement of law officer, but sought more time to file a written statement in that regard. The bench allowed requests and put off the hearing till Sept 8.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2020