ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Saturday assailed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for not implementing the court’s orders on delimitation of Karachi constituencies, DawnNews reported.

The larger bench of the apex court, in its 27-page interim verdict of the Karachi unrest case, noted that the remarks given on delimitation issue were not just observations but were part of the judgement and are needed to be implemented.

The bench was comprised of Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Khilji Arif Hussain, Sarmad Jalal Osmani, Gulzar Ahmed and Athar Saeed.

The court had observed on Nov 26 that constituencies in Karachi should be delimited in a manner that they comprise “mixed population” to avoid political polarisation.

The bench noted that conducting free, fair, transparent and impartial elections in the country was the election commission’s responsibility.

The order, in which constitutional articles were also elaborated, contains statement of the ECP secretary along with a detailed note of Justice Khilji Arif Hussain.

The order says that Delimitation of Constituencies Act, 1974 empowers the ECP to delimit the constituencies even with the absence of fresh census.

It also elaborated Article 51 of the Constitution, sub-section 2 of which is only related to the allocation of seats in provincial assemblies and the national assembly and stated that it had nothing to do with the delimitation process.

The plea of the ECP is not in accordance with the law as the election commission apparently does not seem interested in implementing the Supreme Court’s orders, said the written order.

Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, in his additional note, wrote that the ECP was responsible for conducting transparent and impartial elections in the country.

Delimitation of the constituencies should be conducted with regards to the distribution of population geographically and keeping in view the existing boundaries of administrative units, it said.

The order added that pleas of both Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Muhajir Qaumi Movement were rejected because they did not pursue them further.