Islamabad: Justice Jamal Mandokhel on Monday said that after withdrawing of election symbol from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf it gave impression that the political party ended and the party destroyed as a part of larger bench hearing the Sunni Ittehad Council petition against the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict that denied it reserved seats for women and minorities.
The development came as the 13-member full court bench of the Supreme Court took up the plea of SIC, a major ally of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), challenging the PHC’s judgment regarding the reserved seats.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, comprised Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Aminuddin Khan, Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Ayesha Malik, Athar Minallah, Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Irfan Saadat Khan and Naeem Akhtar Afghan
At the outset of the hearing, Advocate Faisal Siddiqui of the SIC said that there are two different petitions before the court.
Meanwhile, the advocate general said that a petition for contempt of court has been filed against his government in the PHC for not following the court’s order.
The SIC’s lawyer then read out the verdict by the three-member bench in the previous hearing.
CJP Isa asked the opposing parties in the case and the beneficiaries who were made parties.
Advocate Siddiqui replied that those who have been given additional seats are the beneficiaries, adding that there are a total of 77 disputed seats.
He added that 22 National Assembly and 55 provincial assembly seats are disputed.
At this point, the CJP asked which parties got the eight seats from KP. To this, Siddiqui said PML-N received four seats while JUI-F and PPP got two seats each.
He also told the court that Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) also bagged an additional seat for women from Sindh. The counsel gave a breakdown of the seats to the CJP.
At this point, CJP Isa asked if any of the beneficiary party supports the SIC in court. To this, PPP, PML-N and JUI-F opposed the SIC plea.
Justice Akhtar then said that SIC did not win any seats as per the notification.
“There is no logic in ECP’s orders. On one hand it says the SIC did not contest the election and on the other it accepts it as a parliamentary party.”
Justice Shah then said that the ECP accepted the inclusion of candidates in the SIC, however, three days after the electoral body said that the party will not get reserved seats.
Advocate Siddiqui said that it is not necessary for a party to contest elections for reserved seats as per the law. “If independent candidates join a party then they are given reserved seats.”
The CJP asked: “The SIC did not contest elections. Is this the real position?”
To this, Siddiqui replied in the positive, saying this is the entire dispute.
The court then adjourned the hearing till 11:30am on Tuesday.
