ISLAMABAD: What guarantee is there that the required number of army personnel would be available to conduct a census next March, the Supreme Court asked the government on Thursday.

“The government has been saying that a census is not possible without the assistance of the armed forces. If the government is so dependent on them, then why doesn’t it hand over the whole system to them,” asked Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali.

Mr Jamali was heading a three judge bench that had taken suo motu notice of the delay in holding a population census.

SC chides govt for being too dependent on military support for enumeration exercise

“The basis of any democratic system is the census,” the chief justice observed, referring to the federal government’s response from August 2 that a census would not be possible before March-April 2017 and that too only if armed forces personnel were available.

In its reply, the government had said that deployments for Operation Zarb-i-Azb and other security related commitments had made it difficult to avail the services of the armed forces to conduct the census.

Additional Attorney General Mohammad Waqar Rana told the SC that a decision on when to hold the census was made by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and emphasised that the law was silent on a timeframe for such an exercise.

The court, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s response, calling it “paperwork” and asked Attorney General Aushtar Ausaf to appear before the court on August 31.

In its report, the federal government said that the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) held a meeting with the defence ministry on July 22, which was attended by representatives of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), Directorate of Military Operations and General Headquarters (GHQ).

The meeting reviewed the status of efforts to hold the census under the supervision of the armed forces, with particular reference to the use of the Nadra database to help tally census results, and the use of modern methods such as smartphones and tablets in the census operation, rather than traditional pen-and-paper methods, the report said.

It was decided after detailed deliberations that the CCI would be forwarded updates, which will be released by the end of 2016 by the Military Operations Directorate, over whether armed forces personnel will be available for the census activity.

The report also stated that on completion of the CNIC verification exercise by Nadra, the interior ministry would inform PBS of blocked and cancelled CNICs issued to Afghans and other aliens.

PBS will also make preparations for the use of modern technology for data collection to the largest possible extent.

The report assured the court that the finance ministry had allocated the required funds in FY2016-17 and entrusted PBS with carrying out the census under section 31 of the General Statistics (Reorganisation) Act 2011. The bureau, the report said, has completed essential arrangements to hold the census on the civil side.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2016