——- SIC also challenges ECP’s reserved seats allocation in LHC
PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) extended on Thursday the stay on the oath-taking of Na-tional Assembly reserve seats until March 13.
A five-member larger bench of the provincial high court, headed by Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, heard the petition filed by the PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).
PTI lawyer Babar Awan informing the court informed the court about the presidential elections sched-uled for March 9 and argued that a party with 93 seats in the lower house was not awarded its due share of reserve seats, while other parties with just a seat each were allotted two reserve seats.
Awan said the electoral watchdog “gifted” the reserve seats to other parties.
Additional Attorney General Sanaullah sought time for the preparation of arguments in the case and informed the court that the attorney general was busy with another case being heard in the Supreme Court.
The judge summoned AGP at the next hearing and extended the stay on the PTI petition till March 13. Yesterday, a two-member bench of PHC restrained the lawmakers from taking oath for a day and re-ferred the case to the PHC chief justice for the formation of a larger bench.
The bench noted that a larger bench will have to determine whether the PHC has jurisdiction to adju-dicate the matter and if the petitioner (PTI) has locus standi to file the petition.
During the hearing, Justice Ibrahim inquired whether this case is limited to the K-P or extends to the entire country. The PTI’s lawyer, Qazi Anwar, stated that the ECP made a uniform decision on seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies. “Our reserved seats cannot be constitutionally or legally divided among other parties. We request the court to prevent those who will take oath on those reserved seats,” he said.
The ECP had declined to allocate reserved seats to the SIC because it had not submitted a “priority list” for these seats prior to the February 8 general elections.
In its written order, the ECP stated that the SIC was not entitled to claim quotas for reserved seats for women and non-Muslims “due to non-curable legal defects and violation of the mandatory provision of submission of a priority list for reserved seats, which is a requirement of the law.” The PTI subsequently approached the PHC against the order. In its petition, the PTI argued that the ECP allocated its reserved seats to other parties in violation of Article 51(6) of the Constitution, read with Section 104 of the Elections Act, 2017, and Rules 92 and 94 of the Election Rules, 2017.
Earlier, The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), a coalition of lawmakers backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) challenging the recent decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to allocate reserved seats meant for it to other political parties.
The SIC, which was denied its requested reserved seats earlier this week, claimed the ECP’s decision is illegal, unlawful, and goes against the Constitution.
The ECP, following the rejection of the SIC’s request, initiated the process of allocating the disputed reserved seats to other parliamentary parties. According to notifications issued by the commission, reserved seats for minorities and women have been distributed among various parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F).
In the petition filed today, SIC Chairman Sahibzada Muhammad Hamid Raza labeled the ECP’s order as unconstitutional and requested the court to suspend its operation. The petition also urged the court to restrain the respondents from taking oath until a final decision is reached.
The SIC argued that the ECP’s allocation of reserved seats was not in line with the Constitution and re-quested the court to direct the commission to allocate seats based on the party’s strength in the Na-tional Assembly and the provincial assembly of Punjab.
Advocate Ishtiaq A. Khan, representing the SIC, contended that the petitioner had written four letters to the ECP on February 21, 2024, seeking the party’s rightful share in the reserved seats. The ECP, however, allegedly ignored these requests and scheduled a preliminary hearing on February 27, 2024.
The petition further highlighted that the ECP, in its order announced on March 4, 2024, refused to allo-cate the reserved seats to the SIC and directed them to be allotted to other parties. The SIC argued that the ECP misinterpreted and misapplied the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Elec-tion Act, 2017.
“The entire scheme of the ‘reserved seats’ as provided in the Constitution does not envisage the ‘allo-cation of any reserved seat’ to a ‘political party’ over and above its due share ‘proportionate to the number of seats it has won,” the petition stated.
The SIC’s chairman emphasised that the election commission’s reliance on the election schedule and date for submission of the priority list, as per Section 104 of the Election Act, should not supersede the provisions of Article 51 of the Constitution. –Agencies
