ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: The Supreme Court admitted on Monday a petition challenging the delimitation of five provincial assembly constituencies of the Lahore district.

The petition alleged that the constituencies were altered to favour a government-backed candidate of the PML(QA).

The bench — comprising Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Justice Qazi Mohammad Farooq and Justice Mian Mohammad Ajmal — heard Advocate Chaudhry Mushtaq before issuing notice to the election commission. The apex court required the election commission to submit comments. It, however, fixed no date for the next hearing.

The petitioner, Raja Munawar Ahmad, challenged the delimitation of PP 151, 152, 161, 168 and 169 on the grounds that it had been altered in such a way that Arshad Imran Sulehri, a likely candidate of the PML(QA), would take benefit of it.

The petitioner stated that PP-151 comprised a population of more than 300,000 against 247,857 prescribed by the election commission as the average population for a provincial assembly constituency.

It was stated before the apex court that the principle of compactness had been violated inasmuch as that not only the town forming PP-151 had been bifurcated, but the small administrative divisions had also been bifurcated.

Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Justice Irshad Hasan Khan told a press conference on Monday that to make the process of delimitation transparent, objections to the preliminary delimitation of constituencies were invited from entitled voters.

He said the election commission had received 945 representations against preliminary delimitation of 849 constituencies, out of which 307 pertain to the National Assembly and 638 to the provincial assemblies.

The objections, he said, were heard and disposed of by the election commission, members.

The CEC stated that 92 writ petitions were filed in the four high courts challenging the delimitation of the constituencies out of which 58 had been dismissed and 40 were pending adjudication.