ISLAMABAD: The federal government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) today challenged the order of the Islamabad High Court of holding local bodies polls in Islamabad on Saturday.
On Friday (Dec 30), the court ordered the ECP to hold LG elections in Islamabad on Saturday (Dec 31) _ within a day.
The federal government today challenged the IHC verdict in an intra-court appeal while the registrar of the IHC returned the appeal of the ECP terming the lack of required documents.
Therefore, the ECO officials are holding an important meeting on Saturday to discuss and fulfill the legal requirements of the IHC for filing intra-court appeal against LG elections.
Earlier, the Islamabad High Court ordered the ECP to hold local bodies Islamabad in Islamabad. The court gave order on the petitions of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Jamaat-e-Islami.
Both these political parties sought nullification of ECP’s decision of putting on hold LG poll.
Worth noting is that on Dec 27, the Election Commission postponed the LG elections in the capital city after a change in the union councils of the capital territory.
The IHC, nonetheless, directed the federal government to assist the ECP in holding the local government polls.
In its order, the IHC said, “The Ministry of Interior’s December 19 notification has been declared null and void and so is the December 27 notification of the election commission,” the order added.
I am an experienced writer, analyst, and author. My exposure in English journalism spans more than 28 years. In the past, I have been working with daily The Muslim (Lahore Bureau), daily Business Recorder (Lahore/Islamabad Bureaus), Daily Times, Islamabad, daily The Nation (Lahore and Karachi). With daily The Nation, I have served as Resident Editor, Karachi. Since 2009, I have been working as a Freelance Writer/Editor for American organizations.
