KARACHI: The Sindh government on Saturday filed an appeal at the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry against the decision of the Sindh High Court (SHC) declaring null and void all amendments made to the local government ordinance.
The appeal was filed by the Sindh advocate general Sindh Khalid Javed Khan‚ saying that the entire process of delimitations in the province was carried out lawfully, and added that the difference in budget allocations of the rural and urban areas was in view of their requirements.
The Sindh advocate general said that one union council constituted of 70,000 voters in 2001 law, while it is 10,000 to 50,000 in the new law and the objection on this was baseless. He further said that holding of local bodies elections on the date fixed by the apex court on January 18 has become impossible after the SHC ruling.
The apex court accepted the petition for hearing on January 8 in Islamabad.
Earlier‚ Muttahida Qaumi Movement also filed a petition at the Karachi Registry of the Supreme Court requesting the court not to give any decision on the appeal of the Sindh government without listening to the stance of the MQM.
On Monday, a divisional bench of the SHC headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah ruled all amendments made to the local government ordinance unconstitutional and ordered that they be withdrawn.
The bench also set aside the entire delimitation exercise carried out by the delimitation officers for Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana divisions. It observed that the elections to the local bodies may be conducted on January 18 on the position existing prior to when the delimitation process started in the year 2013.
