ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Disposing of a petition filed by Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, the Islamabad High Court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan on Thursday to decide his plea about delimitation of his constituency.

Mr Bijarani had requested the ECP in 2002 to set aside the delimitation of NA-209 and PS-16, Jacobabad and Kashmore districts in Sindh, but an ECP decision on the matter is still awaited.

The delimitation of National Assembly’s constituencies NA-208, NA-209 and NA-210 were carried out in 2002 during the regime of Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf.

In his petition, Mr Bijarani objected to the delimitation and termed it unjust.

His lawyer Umer Hanif Khitchi informed the court that the then PML-Q government had changed limitations of the constituencies on the request of one individual who wanted to destabilise the political base of his client. He said that in order to facilitate candidates belonging to the then ruling party, three seats each of the National Assembly and Sindh Assembly were unnecessarily disarranged and delimited in contravention of Section 9 of the Delimitation of Constituencies Act, 1974.

The IHC division bench comprising Justice Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi and Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui after hearing arguments directed the ECP to decide the matter in accordance with law.

The court, however, did not set any deadline to decide the matter as Justice Kasi observed that the ECP was engaged in making arrangements for upcoming elections.