Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Hearing a case pertaining to removal of local government (LG) representatives from their party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for casting votes against the party policy, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar on Friday observed that the local government law of the province was full of errors and it seemed as if the law was copied and pasted by taking it from somewhere and that too in a haste.

A three-member Supreme Court bench consisting of Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Umra Ata Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab, after hearing the counsels for the sacked representatives at length, reserved its verdict.

During the hearing, counsel for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) told the court that despite the party’s clear instructions, the representatives who were removed voted to the opposite party.

He said that five district councillors of Lakki Marwat were removed after they violated the party’s instructions.

The chief justice remarked that no such instructions were available on the record during the election of the nazim, so how the representatives could be removed.

The counsel for JUI told the court that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had also sacked its Abbottabad district nazim on the same grounds.

Justice Faisal Arab noted that it was not clear who the candidates in Lakki Marwat were. He said that if there was no candidate of a party then the voter was free to cast his vote to any of the candidates.

Published in Daily Times, September 23^rd 2017.