MQM-P moves court against ECP notification about delimitation.

Byline: Ishaq Tanoli

KARACHI -- The MuttaAhida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan on Thursday approached the Sindh High Court against a notification of the Election Commission of Pakistan constituting committees for delimitation for local government jurisdictions in Sindh.

MQM-P leaders Amir Khan, Kunwar Naveed Jamil and Wasim Akhtar through their counsel challenged the ECP notification and submitted that delimitation exclusively came within the domain of the ECP, but the additional deputy commissioners were included in these committees while the final result of the national census had also not been officially publicised.

The petitioners submitted that on April 13, the provincial election commission addressed a letter to the district election commissioners of Sindh asking them to provide proposals for constituting delimitation committees comprising at least three officers for each district.

They maintained that various district election commissioners replied with names of members for the delimitation committees, adding that while the convener of a committee was a member of the provincial election commission, another member was an additional deputy commissioner of the district.

The petitioners further submitted that before the amendments made in the act of 2013 and the promulgation of the Election Act of 2017, the delimitation committees were composed of one member, additional district commissioner, but the SHC had ordered that the process of delimitation being carried out by such a committee was not transparent and also smacked of political influence and the judgement was upheld by the Supreme Court.

They argued that such a letter/notification was illegal and also submitted that they had recently learnt that in pursuance to this correspondence, the committees constituted had not only initiated the delimitation proceedings but had completed them.

They maintained that the letter dated April 13 and the notification issued on Jan 30, 2020 were illegal and unlawful since the...

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