KARACHI (Online) - Sindh High Court SHC has issued stay order on printing of ballot papers for eleven constituencies of Karachi.
It may be mentioned that SHC had reserved its judgment till Monday on the petition filed by the MQM against delimitation of three national and eight provincial assembly constituencies in Karachi.
The political party had challenged the election commission’s March 22 notification regarding delimitation of 11 Karachi constituencies, terming it “nothing but gerrymandering” and “against the spirit and principle of one man-one vote”.
In his concluding arguments, Deputy Attorney General Ashiq Raza submitted that constituencies were redrawn following the Supreme Court order on Karachi violence case.
He contended the election commission was empowered under Section 10-A of the Delimitation of Constituencies Act to redraw constituencies.
The commission also justified the delimitation, mentioning that apex court had observed that boundaries of administrative units like police station and revenue estates ought to be altered to avoid political polarisation and break the cycle of ethnic strife and turf wars.
The court was told the schedule for general elections 2013 was issued on March 22 and the process started with the issuance of schedule and not by the completion of the term of assemblies.
“The petition is not maintainable and devoid of any merit and may kindly be dismissed,” the election commission submitted.
MQM counsel Farogh Naseem submitted that delimitation was not made according to the last recognised census of 1998 but on the basis of incomplete census. The constituencies were redrawn without a fresh census, which could not be done under the law, he argued.
The lawyer contended that after the election process had started neither the constituencies could be redrawn nor the electoral rolls could be changed as both are relevant to each other as it would affect the entire election process.
Hearing the petition filed by Muttahida Qaumi Movement MQM against the new delimitation of Karachi constituencies, the SHC Monday issued stay order till April 21 and sough answer from the Election Commission on April 22.
Meanwhile, Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday issued contempt of court notice to Election Commissioner Sindh for not complying with Supreme Court orders pertaining to redrawing of electoral constituencies in the province.
According to media reports, Provincial Election Commissioner (Sind) S M Tariq Qadri was served the notice when the representative of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) failed to present official notification of delimitation of constituencies for provincial and National Assembly seats in Nosheroferoz district of Sindh.
In March, the ECP’s Sindh chapter had submitted a written reply to the Sindh High Court, claiming that a committee headed by Justice (retd) Roshan Esani had been constituted to perform the task within seven days.
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