The Supreme Court has resumed the hearing on the petition filed by the Sunni Ittehad Council an ally of the PTI challenging the denial of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies. A full-court bench, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, is conducting today’s proceedings. Other judges on the bench are Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha A. Malik, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan. Lawyer Sikandar Bashir, representing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), is presenting his arguments before the 13-member full court. Pakistan Peoples Party lawyer Farooq H Naek is also scheduled to advance his arguments. The PTI had, after losing its electoral symbol ‘bat’, directed the independent candidates who won election with its backing to join the SIC.

In March, the ECP ruled that the SIC was not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats “due to having non-curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats”. Later, the ECP accepted applications of the opposing parties and decided that the seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies would not remain vacant and would be allocated by a proportional representation process on the basis of seats won by political parties. The development resulted in the PTI-backed SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats - 23 National Assembly seats (20 women and 3 minorities), 25 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seats (21 women and 4 minorities), two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and 3 minority). The PTI dismissed the ECP verdict as unconstitutional. The SIC then challenged the ECP ruling in the Peshawar High Court, but its plea was dismissed.

In May, a three-judge bench of the apex court took up a petition filed by the SIC. The court suspended the ECP decision to allocate SIC's reserved seats to other parties. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, during the proceedings, remarked that the mandate given by the people should be properly represented in parliament. The court sent the matter of reserved seats to the Judges Committee to decide whether the case would be heard by the same bench or a larger bench would be constituted. The court also ordered the ECP to suspended victory notifications of 77 lawmakers [on reserved seats], causing the ruling coalition to lose its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. In late May, a full court was constituted to hear the case.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan