Larger LHC bench sought on petitions against new LG law

LAHORE: A Lahore High Court (LHC) judge on Thursday requested the chief justice to form a larger bench to hear similar petitions seeking annulment of several provisions of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2021.

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The ordinance envisages the annulment of existing local bodies till January 1, 2022, and the use of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the next polls.

Justice Shahid Jamil Khan was hearing a petition of Faisalabad Mayor Razzaq Malik. During the hearing, he said that important points had been raised in the petitions and recommended forming a larger bench to hear them.

The petitioner pleaded that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government in Punjab, with a mala fide intention, was trying to bring a system of local government (LG) that could be controlled and influenced according to its whims and wishes.

He stated that the incumbent government indirectly changed the faces of the elected representatives at first through the 2019 Act, which could not be done directly.

“Now the whole election scheme is being disrupted through the impugned ordinance,” the petitioner asserted.

He argued that under the impugned law, the provincial chief minister had been empowered to take decisions or actions according to his whim, making the LG system redundant.

According to the Faisalabad mayor, a new system of voting through EVMs had been imposed in the new law without the approval of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which had reservations about its use.

The petitioner argued that the right to vote had been abbreviated as polling through technology without proper training of the voters including illiterate ones, claiming it had been done just to dictate the whole election process which he said was against the spirit of ‘free and fair’ elections.

The petitioner contended that the impugned actions of the government were ‘ultra vires’ to the Constitution as the will of the people and their right to vote had been snatched by introducing provisions for the appointment of non-elected persons in the offices of local government.

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He then asked the LHC to revoke the impugned provisions of the ordinance for violating the Constitution following which LHC’s Justice Khan referred the petitions to the chief justice with a request to form a larger bench in the matter.