Islamabad, Apr 13 (PTI) Pakistan's parliamentary panel on Thursday rejected a bill seeking funds for the elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces according to the directives of the Supreme Court.

The apex court on April 4 ordered the federal government to provide Rs 21 billion to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by Monday to enable it to organise polls in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

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Instead, the coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, introduced a bill titled “Charged Sum for General Election (Provincial Assemblies of Punjab & Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) Bill 2023” in Parliament on Monday to authorise the release of the required funds for the ECP to hold elections.

The bill, sent to the House Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue for discussions by the National Assembly Speaker, was rejected on Thursday.

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The bill's rejection was announced by Panel chairman Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), after the committee meeting, the Dawn newspaper reported.

“This bill… as it was not allocated in our budget and the finance minister has said that funds are not available, there was no other option (so) we rejected it," Sheikh was quoted as saying in the report.

“We do not have any other fund, right - the committee does not have funds of its own. The alerts that we have been given […] the entire committee has collectively rejected the bill,” he said.

The committee chairman also objected to the bill being presented before the finance committee instead of the budget committee.

Elections are due to be held on May 14 in Punjab, but the date for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elections has not been decided as yet.

Following its rejection, the bill will return to the Parliament's lower house for lawmakers to ponder over, from where it will be sent to the relevant committees again.

The rejection of the bill by the committee comes a day ahead of a hearing scheduled by the Supreme Court about the failure of the government to release funds for elections.

The government and the apex court are at odds over the conduct of elections in the two provinces, as the former has been trying to delay the exercise in an effort to hold the polls with the general elections in the entire country.

However, the court is adamant that the constitutional requirement of holding an election within 90 days of the dissolution of an assembly should be followed.

Pakistan is in danger of defaulting on its debt, with an IMF bailout programme stalled since November, while a bruising political battle is raging between the government and Khan.

The cash-strapped nation is in dire need of funds, with its foreign exchange reserves hovering around USD 4.2 billion which provides barely one month of import cover. PTI SH AKJ

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)