Special Committee on Delimitation of Constituencies meets

ISLAMABAD: The 3rd meeting of Special Committee on Delimitation of Constituencies (SCDC) was held on Wednesday here at Parliament House,under the Chairmanship of  Murtaza Javed Abbasi, Deputy Speaker National Assembly.

The main objective of the meeting was to consider/discuss the report of the Working Group of the SCDC.

Daniyal Aziz, Minister for Privatization/Convener of the Working Group of SCDC presented the report.

The Committee discussed the following recommendations of the report of the Working Group at length and breadth:-

That Constitutional Amendment Bill may be passed by deleting the provision of constitutional amendment along with the provisional census data being used; as there is no threat of the final census data being available before the election. Therefore, the question of delay of elections does not arise and we are well before the election schedule.

That the amendment to the section 20 of the Elections Act, 2017 be made as an Ordinance to bring the sub-rule (5) of rule 10 of Election Rules, 2017 into the main text of Act, and for blocking the fractionalization at the district level and clarifying the administrative boundaries north, clock wise and zigzag as well as cognate matters.

To institute an inquiry under the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act, 2017 under the retired Judge to inquire into the gross violation of law and rules by the Delimitation Committees and its motivations including but not limited to the movement of the members of the Committees, their communication as well as their examination under oath.

Further, the reasons for the Commission to over look such gross violation of uniformity in applications of the law and rules, said a press release on Wednesday.

As explained in the Report of this Group, also the inquiry will cover the detailed chronological of events with regards to the recent census and compare previous PES norms and standards and processes with regards to delimitation of final publication of census results, and the reasons and the motivation misleading this Committee and the Parliament leading to the constitutional amendment for provisional census data delimitation.

Filing of public interest litigation under Article 184 of the Constitution in the public interest to adjudicate on the gross violation of law and tempering of rights by the ECP and its motivators, and Resolution by the Parliament itemizing the grave violations by the ECP and FBS, and providing for its remedy by the respective Institutions.

The Committee also agreed on the findings made by the Working Group on the Delimitation of Constituencies by ECP. It was decided that the report may be circulated to all the members of the SCDC for their views and comments.

The members/MNA’s .Daniyal Aziz, S.A. Iqbal Quadri, Sahibzada Tariq Ullah, Siraj Muhammad Khan and Ms.Naeema Kishwar Khan attended the meeting.