ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: President Asif Ali Zardari signed on Tuesday the 20th Constitution Amendment Bill 2012 into law for creating an independent election commission and an impartial caretaker set-up for holding general election.

Lawyer Maulvi lqbal Haider filed a petition in the Supreme Court on the same day, challenging the amendment on various legal grounds.

“President Asif Ali Zardari signed the 20th Constitutional Amendment into law and gave the credit for its passage to the maturity and political wisdom of the political parties and the Parliament,” said the President’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar.

The bill was passed by the National Assembly on Feb 14 and by the Senate on Feb 20.

The spokesman said the president had felicitated the nation and political parties.

“The president termed the legislation a landmark development in strengthening democracy and ensuring free, fair and transparent elections under an independent election commission and neutral interim set-ups,” the spokesman said.

The bill seeks to amend Articles 48, 214, 215, 216, 218, 219, 224 and adds a new Article, 224A, in the Constitution to make the Election Commission truly independent.

The amendment validated the election of 28 lawmakers through by-elections during the past two years whose membership was suspended by the Supreme Court because the elections were held by an incomplete election commission in negation of the 18th Amendment, approved in April 2010.

However, the petitioner termed by-elections ‘illegal’, saying they were conducted on voter lists which had already been declared bogus by the Elections Commission. He challenged exclusion of 36 million voters from fresh electoral rolls prepared by the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra).

The amendment provided for reducing the number of committees at provinces for appointing caretaker chief ministers and their cabinets for fresh elections on completion of the tenure of any sitting government.

The 20th Amendment provided for constituting an eight-member committee each at the centre and the provinces to nominate the prime minister and the chief ministers along with their cabinets.