RAWALPINDI Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench, Thursday, issued notices to Attorney General to respond and assist the court in a petition challenging present constitutional status of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). After issuing notices, LHC judge Justice Sagheer Ahmed Qadri adjourned the hearing saying the court would decide the petition after the Supreme Court gave its verdict in the petition challenging the 18th amendment. During the hearing, the court was also informed that the changes in the ECP set-up under the 18th Amendment had also been challenged in the apex court. Earlier, the court had asked the Election Commission to inform the court if the changes in the ECP set-up under the 18th Amendment had been challenged in the Supreme Court after an ECP official told the court that the changes in the commissions set-up had also been challenged in the apex court. But Advocate Manzoor Ahmed Malik, representing the petitioner, said only four issues relating to the 18th Amendment - judges appointments, name of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, elections for minorities and within the political parties - had been challenged. Justice Qadri directed the ECP official to check the facts from the SC. A deputy attorney general representing the federal government maintained that the amendments in the Constitution had allowed the sitting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to hold his office till the appointment of new commissioner for five years. He said under the Representation of Peoples Act 1976, the CEC in the absence of the ECP could hold elections to fill a vacant national or provincial assembly seat. In written comments, the ECP had maintained that a joint sitting of the Parliament through a resolution could allow sitting CEC to hold by-elections till the commission is constituted in accordance with the 18th Amendment. The petitioner, who wanted to contest by-election from Sargodha but could not, as, according to him, the sitting CEC was not working according to the amended constitution. He stated that according to the 18th Amendment, the CEC should be a retired judge of Supreme Court, selected by a 12-member parliamentary committee from a three-member panel proposed jointly by the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader. But the present CEC, the petitioner said, had not been appointed in accordance with the 18th Amendment. The petitioner maintained that under the amended articles, the ECP would comprise four retired judges of High Court from every province and every member should be selected according to the procedure laid down for the commissioner. Presently there is no such commission. The petitioner Syed Nusrat Ali Shah had moved the court through his lawyer Manzoor Hussain Malik and made the CEC, election commissions secretary and returning officer for NA-68 (Sargodha-V) as respondents and challenged the present ECP set-up.