Islamabad, Jun 4 (PTI) A judge of Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday highlighted the “legal mistakes” by the election authorities that had forced the candidates of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to field its candidates to contest the February 8 election as independents.
Justice Munib Akhtar made the observations while a 13-member full bench headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa heard the petition of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) against the rejection of its claim on reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies after the general election.
There are 70 reserved seats in the National Assembly and another 156 in the four provincial assemblies and the SIC was not given any seat as it had not contested the election. The party gained strength when PTI-backed independently elected candidates joined it after the elections.
The reserved seats are allotted to winning parties based on proportional representations in the respective assemblies but the SIC plea was rejected by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and also by the Peshawar High Court, and subsequently the party challenged it in the Supreme Court.
During the hearing, which was streamed live, SIC lawyer Faisal Siddiqui argued in favour of the main plea to award reserved seats to the party and the judges passed different remarks, which are of no legal value but help to understand the thought process of the panel.
Responding to the SIC lawyer’s point that there wouldn’t have been any issue if the apex court had clarified its verdict on the bat symbol, the chief justice said that the matter of reserved seats would not have existed had the PTI conducted its intra-party elections.
“Don’t attribute everything to the Supreme Court,” he said, adding that the PTI deprived its supporters of democratic rights by not holding the intra-party election as per its own laws, which would have benefited its members.
Justice Akhtar in his remarks highlighted that the ECP made “legal mistakes” while deciding the issue of the intra-party election of the PTI and deprived the party of its symbol of cricket bat due to which it could not contest the February 8 elections as a party.
He said that the issue regarding reserved seats came down to whether these candidates should be “denied those reserved seats simply because now they have taken shelter under [the Sunni Ittehad Council umbrella].” He said that the independent candidates had indicated their affiliation with the PTI and that their nomination papers were accepted and they won the elections, and such candidates would be considered affiliated with the PTI.
“Only those will be considered as independent candidates who submit an affidavit that they are not affiliated with any political party,” he said and asked: “How can the ECP’s law declare PTI’s candidates as independents?” Later, the court then adjourned the hearing till June 24.
Earlier, the Supreme Court on May 6 in a major relief to the PTI suspended the Peshawar High Court’s decision about rejecting the SIC plea. Following the ruling, the ECP on May 14 suspended the victory notifications of 77 candidates, who were declared successful on the reserved seats.
The final ruling by the top court in the case would decide the fate of those 77 reserved seats. Though it may not change the current power structure, the changes in the overall number game in the assemblies may impact the law-making in the country. PTI SH RUP RUP
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.