KARACHI, Dec 30: The Sindh High Court on Thursday issued the attorney-general also a notice in a petition moved by four nazims and two naib nazims against their removal following bifurcation of their districts.

The hearing was adjourned to Jan 4 to enable Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan to file comments on behalf of the provincial government. Fresh notices to the Election Commission of Pakistan and the National Reconstruction Bureau were issued for the same date by a division bench comprising Justices Wahid Bux Brohi and Mushir Alam.

Advocates Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Abdul Mujeeb Pirzada also filed their powers of attorney for the petitioners, the sacked nazims of Dadu, Jacobabad, Larkana and Mirpurkhas and naib nazims of Larkana and Mirpurkhas.

Advocate Rasheed A. Razvi, who filed the joint petition to challenge the Dec 22 notifications removing the petitioners and empowering the district coordination officers to perform their functions till new polls, will continue to appear.

Admitting the petition on Dec 27, the bench observed that 'natural calamity' and 'conditions beyond human control', the two factors empowering the provincial government to act under Section 186 (2) of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, under which the impugned notifications had been issued, were apparently missing in the instant case. It, however, declined to stay the operation of the notifications.

Advocate Hafeez Pirzada submitted that since the petition involved interpretation of statutory and constitutional provisions, the attorney-general should also be issued a notice.