LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) reserved its verdict on Wednesday on a petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) order, stripping off Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of electoral symbol of ‘bat’.
A single-judge LHC bench comprising Justice Jawad Hassan presided over the proceedings.
Chaudhry Umer Aftab, the petitioner urged the court to annul the order, suspend its operation until a final decision is reached, and direct the ECP to “publish PTI’s certificate on the ECP website”.
The petitioner contended that the electoral symbol was unlawfully withdrawn as the ECP lacked jurisdiction to determine conformity of intra-party elections with the party constitution.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the petitioner’s counsel argued that the Punjab Election Commissioner was disregarding the decision of the Peshawar High Court (PHC).
Justice Jawad questioned whether the provincial election commissioner could go against the decision of his chief election commissioner, highlighting that an appeal against the PHC decision is still pending.
PTI’s counsel contended that PTI’s contestants are facing various tactics to impede their progress. “First, they were restrained from submitting nomination papers, and now PTI’s electoral symbol has been withdrawn,” argued PTI’s counsel. Justice Jawad reminded that the Supreme Court had prohibited any interference in election matters.
The petitioner’s counsel pointed out that PTI had its electoral symbol reinstated in Peshawar by the PHC’s order, but in Punjab, PTI is still deprived of it. The counsel urged LHC to issue an order restoring PTI’s electoral symbol at the Punjab level.
The petitioner’s counsel asserted that LHC should restore the electoral symbol, equating its absence to depriving PTI’s supporters of their party’s symbol.
However, the lawyer representing the federation contended that the petitioner was not directly affected, rendering the plea non-maintainable.
Justice Jawad questioned whether the LHC could grant relief based on the decision of another province’s court. He also inquired whether the political party had challenged the relevant sections of the Elections Act anywhere. After hearing the arguments, Justice Jawad reserved the decision.
The petitioner, in his plea, argued that the ECP has no authority to challenge the internal appointments of PTI officials or nullify PTI’s intra-party elections. The petitioner emphasised that the ECP is not a court of law and cannot question the appointments or examine the validity of the political party’s intra-party elections for any reasons.
