Karachi: Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to hold local government polls in Sindh, the Punjab and Khyber Pakthunkhwa provinces and in Islamabad on the apex court schedule without any deviation.

The three-member bench of the apex court which was presided over by justice Jawad S. Khawja, overruling the ECP pleas for further grant of time, ordered holding the election in line with the constitutional requirement of the country.

For Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the court gave May 30, as the election date.

The bench gave September 20 as the polling date in the Punjab and Sindh provinces, whereas in Islamabad capital territory the apex court set July 15.

For the elections in the cantonment boards all over the country, the SC ordered April 25 for the local government elections.

The apex court was quite annoyed to observe that for the past 17 years no elections were held in the cantonment boards whereas for the past five years elections were not held in the provinces, a grave violation of constitutional clause.

The court rejected the ECP position regarding the incomplete voters’ lists and delimitation of the constituencies, on which the work was still going on. The court remarked that ECP had no other work except holding elections and it should have updated the voters list every year.

Provincial Sindh assembly had recently passed a law to give authority to ECP for conducting delimitation of the electoral constituencies in Karachi and other parts of the province.

The SC further observed that holding transparent and timely elections of all levels was the responsibility of the ECP and no excuse was acceptably for delaying elections on the one pretext or the other.

The court reminded the ECP that obeying each and every clause of the constitution was mandatory upon every individual and the institution of the country.

Many political parties, rights organisations and groups had filed a petition in the Supreme Court for holding the local government elections as the delay was not only violating the constitution of the country but the civic amenities were crippled in absence of the local governments.

Only Baluchsitan province had held the local government election recently