SC fixes plea against census results for hearing

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has fixed the hearing of an application challenging the results of the census 2023, ARY News reported on Sunday.

A three-member bench, led by Justice Ijazul Ahsan, will conduct the hearing on November 13.

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 plea 

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 Statistic (PBS) approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in its meeting, the population of Balochistan was reduced to 14.89 million.

Petitioner said that the bureau of statistics from its official accounts regularly issued contradictory statements.

BHC had given the decision, which was contradictory to facts, petitioner argued.

A petition of the Supreme Court Bar has been pending against the Council of Common Interests. The Balochistan High Court dismissed our petition on the basis of the pending plea of the SC Bar, according to the petition.

“The Supreme Court Bar Association’s plea has been entirely different from our petition”.

The petition in the apex court has made the federation, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, NADRA, the CCI and others as respondents.