PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has included the federal government and major political parties as respondents in a petition against the delimitation of the countrywide constituencies by the Election Commission of Pakistan and its “steps to delay” the upcoming general elections.

A bench consisting of Justice Abdul Shakoor and Justice Syed Arshad Ali observed that the federation of Pakistan, which was to supervise next polls in the country in the last week of Jan 2024, and the leading political parties, who were the “real” stakeholders in the electoral exercise, weren’t impleaded in the case as respondents.

“As such, we do implead the Federation of Pakistan through the ministry of law and justice, government of Pakistan, and leading political parties i.e. Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan, Awami National Party, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Pakistan/Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarians and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, etc. through their respective secretary generals,” declared the court.

It directed an ECP representative, who was present in the courtroom, to submit the corresponding addresses of those political parties within three days for putting them and the federation on notice for response to the petition on next hearing to be fixed later.

Petition in PHC claims that ECP trying to delay general elections

The petition was filed by lawyer Naeem Ahmad Khattak, who requested the court to declare the ECP’s Aug 17 notification for delimitation of constituencies illegal and protect the period specified by the Constitution’s Article 224 for the holding of polls in the country.

The petitioner also called for contempt proceedings under Article 204 of the Constitution against Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja and four ECP members for ‘violating’ the Supreme Court’s April 4 orders for holding elections in Punjab on May 14, 2023.

The respondents in the petition included the ECP through its secretary, the CEC, four ECP members, and secretary of the Supreme Judicial Council.

Advocate Ali Azim Afridi and deputy attorney general Hazrat Said appeared for the petitioner and the federal government, whereas advocate Mohsin Kamran Siddique represented the ECP along with its director-general (law), Arshad Khan, and law officer Samran Jehangir.

The petitioner’s counsel insisted that the people at the helm of affairs, including the respondents, were responsible for organising and conducting elections “honestly, fairly and in accordance with the law but they’re taking measures to delay them.”

He said the ECP, by issuing the impugned notification and a news release on Aug 17, had choreographed a systematic plan with systemic overtones allowing a delay in the holding of general elections at the cost of dispensing with mandatory constitutional provisions.

Mr Afridi contended that in the news release based on the impugned notification, the respondents “shadowed legal obligation over constitutional dispensation.”

“Back-to-back commandments reflecting a delay in general elections are, more or less and seemingly, an addition to the wish-list of a few persons having constitutional duties and responsibilities on their end,” he said.

The lawyer contended that the ECP’s impugned notification was uncalled-for as well as against the Constitution and law.

He added that the notification offended and impinged upon provisions guaranteeing fundamental rights in the Constitution.

Mr Afridi said the holding of elections on time was a constitutionally-embedded right.

He said when the law required a thing to be done in a particular manner then, it should be done in that manner as anything done in conflict of the command of law shall be unlawful being prohibited.

The counsel insisted that the ECP had no powers under the Constitution to delay the issuance of an election schedule.

He added that it was a cardinal principle of law and justice that what cannot be done directly could not be done indirectly.

Through the impugned notification, the ECP issued the schedule for the delimitation of the countrywide constituencies in line with official results of the Seventh Population and Housing Census, 2023.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2023