The Supreme Court (SC) Monday issued notices to the attorney general of Pakistan and the advocate general of Balochistan in a plea challenging the Balochistan census results. The petitioner, Hasan Kamran, initially contested the census results in Balochistan in the Balochistan High Court (BHC) and moved to the Supreme Court after the BHC rejected the petition. The petitioner pleaded to the apex court to declare the Balochistan High Court’s August 29 decision as void. According to the petition, the population of Balochistan was reported to be around 21.7 million till the final phase of the census process. However, in the final report Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in its meeting, the population of Balochistan was reduced to 14.89 million.

A three-member SC bench headed by Mr. Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan took up the plea challenging the census results in Balochistan. In his arguments before the court lawyer Kamran Murtaza claimed that caretaker Balochistan CM was ‘forced’ to attend the Council of Common Interests (CCI) meeting to endorse the census results. The caretaker CM avoided attending the CCI meeting as it was ‘incomplete’, Kamran Murtaza said and alleged ‘the chief minister was transported to Islamabad via airplane for the CCI meeting”.

Justice Jamal Mandokhail asked Murtaza who forced his client to attend the meeting. Justice Ahsan noted that the Balochistan CM himself okayed the census results and no one in the meeting objected to the results. Later, the court while issuing notices to the AGP and advocate general of Balochistan to assist the SC on the legal matters adjourned the hearing for a week.

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)