LAHORE, May 4: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday stayed by-election to a National Assembly seat from Jhang (NA-89) upon Punjab government's expressed inability to ensure peaceful polling.

The Election Commission of Pakistan had set May 12 as the date for the by-poll which became due after the death of MNA Maulana Azam Tariq in a shootout near Islamabad. Agreeing to government's argument for postponement of the by-poll, Justice Mohammad Bilal Khan also directed the Punjab government to inform the court on June 18 when would the polling be possible. Through the same order, the court directed the home secretary to determine a period for filling the vacancy in the National Assembly.

Home secretary Nasim Iqbal, the DCO and the DPO deposed before the court earlier in the day that the situation in the National Assembly constituency in Jhang was volatile and bloodshed might result if polling was allowed to be conducted on May 12.

They stated that a terrorist attack anywhere in the constituency targeting one of the candidates could not be ruled out on the polling day because of the volatile situation.

The home secretary stated that the Punjab government could not ensure security in the area for peaceful polling. Under the circumstances, the government was also unable to assure the electorate that polling in Jhang would not come under attack and that the city would remain peaceful on the polling day.

The home secretary also submitted to the court that even if extraordinary security measures were taken with the deployment of police and other law-enforcement agencies at polling stations, the turnout was not likely to be fair enough to ensure adequate representation of locals in the National Assembly.

He feared that the electorate would stand disfranchised and this situation would be in conflict with the constitution which ordained true representation of all areas in the national legislature.

All candidates in NA-89, including Allama Dr Tahirul Qadri, Maulana Alam Tariq, brother of the assassinated MNA, and Sheikh Waqas Akram, opposed postponement of polling in the area through their counsel and refuted the official claim that the situation in Jhang was so volatile as to require postponement of the electoral exercise.

They submitted that the ruling PML-Q was seeking postponement because it was yet to achieve a compromise with interior minister and Patriots leader Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat on various political offices in Jhang. One counsel submitted that even the petition was a creation of official expediency and the petitioner, Bashir Ahmad, was sponsored by some senior government officials with vested interests in Jhang politics.

The counsel for other candidates assured the court that the law and order situation in NA-89 was not as bad as portrayed by the government. Some parties to the coalition government in the centre had political stakes in the constituency and it was for this reason that they were forcing a postponement. They stated that a government that could not ensure a by-election in a free and peaceful atmosphere, had no right to govern.

The government's inability to hold election was a confession of its ineptness, they maintained. Advocate General Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi informed the court that the Punjab home department had given a similar reply to the chief election commissioner who, in a letter to the department on April 14, sought a report about the possibility of by-poll on May 12 in a fair, peaceful and impartial manner.

The home secretary, according to the AG, responded to the commission with the reply that the Punjab government could not take such a responsibility and that polling on May 12 could be disrupted through terrorist acts.

The AG, in response to a court inquiry, submitted that the high court had the jurisdiction to interfere in election matters in extraordinary circumstances like the by-election in Jhang where the provincial government had expressed its inability to discharge a constitutional duty.

He submitted that election meant representation of people in the legislature. With the fear that the electorate would not be represented adequately, an electoral exercise was meaningless.

In this situation, too, the high court would be justified to intervene and ensure enforcement of the constitutional scheme in letter and spirit, he maintained.