ISLAMABAD: The apex court on Tuesday reserved the verdict on the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) plea against the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict upholding the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision denying them the reserved seats.
A 13-member full court bench led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa conducted the hearing today with Barrister Salman Akram Raja and SIC’s Faisal Siddiqui presenting their arguments before the court.
The bench also comprises Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Ayesha Malik, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan.
The whole reserved seats issue first emerged after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed independent candidates emerged victorious in the February 8 elections and subsequently joined the SIC in a bid to claim seats reserved for minorities and women.
However, the PTI suffered a setback after the ECP, citing the party’s failure to submit its list of candidates, denied allocating the reserved seats to the SIC.
The party then approached the PHC which upheld the electoral body’s decision on the matter.
Subsequently, the SIC moved the SC seeking to set aside the PHC verdict and the allocation of 67 women and 11 minority seats in the assemblies.
The allocation of reserved seats holds significance as the PTI-backed independent candidates, who make up the majority of the opposition benches, lost as many as 77 reserved seats in NA and provincial assemblies due to the PHC’s verdict.
Meanwhile, the PTI has also filed a petition seeking to be made a party in the said case contending the former ruling party and the SIC were ready to provide a list of candidates for the allocations but were denied permission to submit it.
The SIC’s plea, however, has been opposed by both the federal government and the electoral body.
In its submission to the court via Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan, the government has urged the apex court to reject the SIC’s plea stressing that the reserved seats for minorities and women could be given to a political party which contested the polls and won at least one seat besides providing a list of candidates based on the total number of seats it won as per the law.
Meanwhile, the ECP has also adopted a somewhat similar argument contending that the party is not eligible to get reserved seats as it did not submit the list of candidates before the January 24 deadline.
Furthermore, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has also submitted its written arguments before the court that the SIC is not entitled to the reserved seats as it neither contested the February 8 polls and nor provided the list for candidates.
It also argues that the party didn’t win a single seat, which as per the written submission, was necessary to qualify for the allocation of 1reserved seats.
“None of the members of SIC contesting for the reserved seats filed their nomination papers let alone with the mandatory requirement of filing them with the list,” it says.
