The pleas of the federal government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against the Islamabad High Court's (IHC) Friday order and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) petition seeking contempt of court proceedings against the centre and ECP are expected to be heard next week.
The cases were not marked by the court's staff, and benches for hearing the pleas will be formed next year — on January 2, 2023. As a result, the petitions will not be taken up for hearing today.
The government and the commission had filed their pleas today morning and requested an emergency order, while the PTI had moved the IHC in the afternoon — but none of them was scheduled.
The IHC, while accepting the petitions of PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) for nullification of ECP’s decision of LG polls' deferral, Friday directed the electoral body to hold the elections as per the schedule today (Saturday).
The ECP had on December 27 cancelled the December 31 schedule to hold the local government elections in the federal capital after a change in the union councils of the capital territory.
However, the high court, in its one-page short order, asked the federal government to ensure that “it assists the election commission in holding the local government polls”.
“The Ministry of Interior’s December 19 notification has been declared null and void and so is the December 27 notification of the election commission,” the order added.
The ECP and federal government challenged the orders of the high court to hold local government elections in the federal capital today (December 31).
The electoral body had requested an immediate hearing on an intra-court appeal filed in the high court. However, the IHC registrar's office raised an objection over the appeal, saying that it lacks the required documents.
Later, the objections were removed by the ECP's legal team.
Meanwhile, the federal government also challenged the IHC's order via a separate intra-court appeal.
Later in the day, PTI lawmaker Ali Nawaz Awan filed a petition in the IHC to hold the government responsible for contempt of court for “deliberately disobeying the unequivocal and unambiguous directions” of the court.
Awan — making the federal government, the election commission, and the chief election commissioner a party in the petition — urged the court to convict and sentence those responsible in an “exemplary manner, in the interest of justice to maintain the sanctity of the judgments and orders” of the court.
"....the respondents may kindly be convicted and sentenced in an exemplary manner, in the interest of justice to maintain the sanctity of the Judgments and orders of the honourable courts."
