ISLAMABAD-The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will Monday (today) resume hearing in the Intra-Court Appeals (ICAs) of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the federal government against the single-bench’s decision about the local bodies’ elections in the federal capital.
A two-member bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz will conduct hearing of the ICAs wherein it had previously issued notices to the respondents, including PTI leader Ali Nawaz Awan and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader Mian Muhammad Aslam and deferred the hearing by delaying the LG polls in the capital until then at least.
However, the IHC bench dismissed the ECP’s plea to suspend the IHC single bench’s verdict.
Previously, Advocate Mian Abdul Rauf represented the ECP while the ECP secretary and law director general (DG) were also present in the court. The federal government’s legal team consisting of Additional Attorney General (AG) Munawar Iqbal Duggal, Deputy AG Arshad Mehmood Kiyani and Islamabad AG Barrister Jahangir Khan Jadoon also appeared before the bench.
In his arguments, the ECP counsel advocate Rauf said that a bill was passed by the parliament proposing to increase the number of union councils (UCs) in the capital from 101 to 125, which was returned unsigned by the president on Sunday.
At this, Justice Aamer said that this bill has not even been declared an act yet. He asked that if the bill had been passed before the ECP’s decision to hold the elections.
The IHC CJ further said that the question is that elections could not be delayed because of a single bill while the bill had not been turned into law yet.
Rauf adopted the stance that the bill had been passed by both houses. He mentioned that there were possibilities [of the question] that under which law would the mayor and the deputy mayor be elected.
The additional AG said that the notification issued on December 19 has not been challenged, not even in this petition.
The IHC CJ said that the said notification had been challenged. The IHC CJ pointed out that none of the parties was addressing the actual constitutional matters raised in the matter.
He added that both the parties are disadvantaging yourselves [as you] did not bring a single thing in front of the court. He also said that the hearing could be held some other day after the parties prepared their arguments.
Later, the IHC bench issued notices to Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and others for January 9.