KARACHI: A petition was filed in the Sindh High Court (SHC) Thursday, seeking issuance of final results of census at the earliest so that the local bodies elections could be held as per schedule. The petition was filed by Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor making Federation of Pakistan, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and others respondents.
He submitted that the Constitution of Pakistan gives an obligation of conducting census after every 10 years. He submitted that, though the process was completed on time, but the provisional results were delayed by a month. Resultantly, different political parties raised questions about the credibility of the results.
The petitioner said in August 2017, the Sindh government of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) rejected the initial results of the recently held population census saying that showing a lesser population in the province is a "conspiracy" by the federal government against Sindh and called a multiparty conference to consider issue.
"That, the Sindh Assembly has also shown reservations on the census results. In November 2017, the members of both treasury and opposition benches in the Sindh Assembly passed an unanimous resolutions to convey the reservations to the federal government on the census outcome, claiming that the province population was shown 10 million less in the head count surveys.
"That, in December, 2019, the Sindh Assembly in another resolution demanded the federal government to conduct census audit of five percent areas of the country as decided in the Council of Common Interest meeting presided over by then Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in 2018.
"That, the completion of the process of 5 percent validation exercise of the 6th national census and announcement of its results is still pending."
He prayed the court to order completion of the post-enumeration audit of five per cent census blocks of the 6th national population census at the earliest. He further prayed to order announcement of the final results of the 6th national population census at the earliest.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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