LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday set aside delimitation of three provincial constituencies in Gujrat and directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to carry out the process afresh.

Some voters from the constituencies had filed petitions pleading that the ECP held delimitation of their constituencies – PP-32, PP-33 and PP-34.

Barrister Syed Ali Zafar argued on behalf of the petitioners that the ECP violated rules of delimitation while carrying out the process in the three constituencies. He said the petitioners had filed objections to the wrong delimitation but the ECP dismissed the same without taking them into account. He asked the court to set aside the delimitation of the three constituencies and order the ECP to hold the process afresh.

Allowing the petitions, the court set aside the impugned notifications and directed the ECP to carry out fresh delimitation and also consider the petitioners’ objections.

Meanwhile, another court overruled an office objection and admitted a petition for hearing filed by Education Minister Rana Mashhood challenging delimitation of his constituency.

The minister had petitioned against the ECP pleading that the delimitation of PP-149 and PP-150 in Lahore had not been done rightly. He sought court’s direction for the ECP to hold the delimitation of the two adjoining provincial constituencies afresh in the light of objections raised by the voters.

The registrar office had put an objection on the maintainability of the petition, which the court overruled, directing the office to fix the petition for hearing before a bench already seized with identical matter.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2018