RAWALPINDI - The Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench on Wednesday reserved its judgment in a petition challenging the process of by-elections on the grounds that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is unconstitutional. LHC Judge Justice Chau-dhary Muhammad Tariq reserved the verdict after the completion of arguments by the petitioners counsel Ma-nzoor Hussain Malik. Earlier, taking up the petition, the LHC Judge Justice Saghir Ahmed Qadri had directed the ECP counsel to submit his reply on August 2 in the petition filed by Syed Nusrat Ali Shah who had questioned the role of the Commission and the CEC in holding by-elections. The petitioner had made the CEC, EC Secretary and Returning Officer for NA-68 (Sargodha-V) as respondents. In his petition, he stated that he wanted to contest the by-election in Sargodha scheduled for today, but was reluctant to do so as the current Commission was not constitutional and all its actions could subsequently be held unconstitutional. He said that under the amended Constitution, the CEC should be a retired SC judge and his selection should be made by a 12-member parliamentary committee from a list of three members to be proposed by the Prime Minister and the Opposition Lea-der. The petitioner, a former MNA from Sargodha, said that under the amended Article 218, the Commission was to comprise four retired HC judges and every member should be selected in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 213. Under the amended Article 219, the petitioner said, all the duties and functions of the CEC had been delegated to the ECP and elections for the Senate, National and Provincial Assemblies and Local Bodies could be conducted only by the ECP, and not by the CEC. He further argued that all elections conducted and are being conducted by the current Commission are unconstitutional and have no legal effect.