LG department withdraws plea against proposals for new UCs

Karachi
The counsel for the local government department withdrew a petition from the Sindh High Court on Tuesday against the provincial election commissioner’s proposals for the creation of new union councils and making changes in constituencies.
Farooq H Naek, the counsel for local government secretary Atta Soomro, said the petitioner had taken the decision to withdraw his challenge since controversy had already been resolved in light of a joint statement made by the local government (LG) department and the election commissioner on the issue.
Soomro had challenged the election commissioner’s recommendations to the government to notify certain areas as new union councils by excluding certain areas from one council and including them in another, as well as to make many other changes.
Naek informed the court that since his client’s grievances had already been redressed in light of the joint statement, he wanted to withdraw the petition.
The court was informed that the government would notify the newly created 11 union councils in sevens districts where fresh elections would be held after the delimitation process.
A division bench headed by Chief Justice Faisal Arab disposed of the petition as withdrawn.
A day earlier, the high court had asked the election commission to explain whether the LG elections could be stayed in new constituencies where controversies over delimitations were still lingering.
Chief Justice Arab had made this query after taking on record reports submitted by the government and the election commission.
The court was told that there would be no impact on town committee or municipal committee elections in seven districts—Khairpur, Sanghar, Ghotki, Jamshoro, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Tharparkar—and fresh elections would be held in newly created constituencies.
In their joint report, the government and the commission had explained reasons for their disagreement over the creation of new councils in six districts.
In his petition, Soomro had said the polls were scheduled to be held in the province in three phases, on October 31, November 19 and December 3, and the exercise of creating new constituencies, if not stopped now, would serve to disenfranchise the people of that particular area and deprive them of the right to elect their own local government.
He said this would also be a violation of articles 140-A and 25 of the constitution. He maintained that even if fresh nominations were allowed for such areas, the elections would not be held on time since the process of the filing of nomination papers, their scrutiny and the allotment of symbols required at least 24 days.