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- March 13, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan stated that a political party could only receive reserved seats if it won a general election during the Peshawar High Court’s hearing on the Sunni Ittehad Council’s lawsuit on the distribution of reserved seats on Wednesday. The poll Commission of Pakistan’s decision to deny the party’s distribution of reserved seats for women and minorities has been contested by the SIC, supported by independents sponsored by the PTI who won the poll without using its electoral symbol.
The electoral watchdog determined earlier this month in a 4-1 decision that the SIC was not qualified to seek a quota for reserved seats “because of non-curable legal faults and a violation of an obligatory provision of filing of party list for reserved seats, which is the criteria of law. The PML-N and the PPP stood to gain significantly from the commission’s decision to allocate the seats among other parliamentary parties. The PTI, meanwhile, ruled that the ruling was unlawful and dismissed it.
On March 6, the PHC’s two-member bench forbade MPs assigned to the reserved seats from taking the oath of office. It listed six questions that needed to be answered in a pre-admission letter that was sent to the ECP and all of the case responders. The bench was extended by a five-member larger bench the following day, till March 13 (today). The case was taken up by the bench today, which is headed by Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and consists of Justices Ijaz Anwar, S.M. Attique Shah, Shakeel Ahmed, and Syed Arshad Ali.
The SIC was represented by Qazi Anwar, and the PPP, a respondent in the lawsuit, was represented by Farooq H. Naek. Though Azam Swati was present on behalf of the PTI, PPP leaders Faisal Karim Kundi and Nayyer Bukhari also made it to the PHC. Today’s appearance by AGP Awan and ECP attorney Sikander Basheer Momand was due to their nonattendance at the last hearing. Anwar’s plea to postpone the hearing till tomorrow was first denied by the PHC. The court asked the SIC attorney to provide an argument following the presentations made by the AGP, PPP, and ECP counsels. The court postponed the hearing to 9 a.m. after Anwar objected, saying he could present his case if granted up to tomorrow.