PESHAWAR – The Peshawar High Court dismissed a petition brought by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-supported Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) challenging a ruling by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The ruling had denied reserved seats to the party.
“The petitions are unanimously rejected,” stated the court. Today, the PHC resumed its hearing, overseen by a five-member bench led by Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, with Justices Ijaz Anwar, Ishtiaq Ibrahim, Shakeel Ahmad, and Arshad Ali in attendance.
During arguments, SIC’s lawyer, Barrister Ali Zafar, pointed out that the Constitution does not specify when a party must submit a list of names for reserved seats to the ECP.
He argued that there’s no explicit prohibition against resubmitting the list or a deadline for its submission. Barrister Zafar further contended that the ECP could have issued a second schedule, as it did for the general elections.
He emphasized that the ECP was obligated to allocate 78 seats to the SIC, which it failed to do.
The court questioned whether the case concerned reserved seats nationwide. Barrister Zafar clarified that the petition specifically addressed the National and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies.
It’s worth noting that the ECP had declined to allocate 20 reserved seats for women and three minority seats to the SIC.
Barrister Zafar mentioned that the ECP had deferred its decision on this matter. However, during this period, six separate applications were submitted, contesting the allocation of reserved seats to the SIC.
These applicants argued that since the SIC did not participate in the general elections and did not submit a list of candidates for reserved seats before the elections, these seats should be distributed among other parties instead.
