PESHAWAR, Oct 3: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court has put the federal secretary law on notice in a writ petition challenging the enhancement of the NWFP Assembly seats by the government.

The bench, comprising Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi and Justice Ijazul Hassan, accepted the petitioner’s plea for early hearing of the petition.

The petitioner, Shahid Orakzai, who is a freelance journalist, contended that the enhancement of provincial assembly seats was in conflict with the Constitution and, being a poor province, the NWFP was not in a position to bear the expenses of additional seats.

He drew the attention of the bench towards the bleak economic conditions in the province, stating that 250 flour mills were closed down and unemployment was on the rise. The salary of a cop in the NWFP was Rs1,000 lesser than that in the Punjab, he added. He argued that the Constitution had given the right to the people of a province to spend its revenue on issues of their priority.

Orakzai argued that as a province had to face expenses of the provincial assembly, therefore, it had the right to decide about holding of such polls. He added that national census could not become a ground for increasing the number of a provincial assembly.

He apprehended that as majority of the candidates were young boys and girls, they would turn the parliament into a canteen of a co-education institution and people would receive news of eves teasing in the parliament.

The petitioner also pointed out that conflict persisted between the army leadership and the largest vote banks of Punjab and Sindh, and the country could not afford such conflicts as the country had witnessed the outcome of such conflicts in 1970.

The court asked the petitioner to confine his arguments up to the provincial assembly. He also questioned increasing the number of Senate seats reserved for the federal capital to four, stating that in the National Assembly, the federal capital had two seats.

The petitioner has prayed the court to declare the impugned order of increasing the provincial assembly seats ultra vires to the Constitution and to direct the federation to postpone general elections to provincial assembly of the NWFP and hold them strictly in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan as laid down in Article 106.