Reserved seats case: Five-member PHC bench hears PTI-backed SIC’s plea | Maqvi News

• AG Awan highlights SIC’s failure to submit list for reserve seats.
• Justice Ishtiaq hints at incomplete parliament amid vacant seats.
• Judge says court would revoke interim relief provided by the court.

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) Wednesday resumed the hearing on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) plea for the allocation of reserved seats.

A five-member bench led by PHC Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan comprising Justice Ijaz Anwar, Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Arshad Ali is hearing the SIC’s plea against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) ruling wherein it had denied allocating the reserved seats to the party.

The electoral body, on March 4, had 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 of political parties on the basis of seats won by political parties.

The development resulted in PTI-backed SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats including 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).

Following the ECP’s verdict, the SIC secured a stay order from the PHC wherein the court had barred the oath-taking of lawmakers notified on reserved seats denied to the party.

However, despite the court’s order, four MNAs elected on reserved seats had taken oath in the lower house amid protest by the opposition benches who were told that neither NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had received the PHC’s against oathtaking of members nor the lawmakers who were sworn-in belonged to the KP.

Last week, PHC Chief Justice Ibrahim Khan clarified that those to were sworn in in the National Assembly (NA) in light of the PHC order “did not commit contempt of court” and that the court’s stay order was limited to KP.

Today’s hearing

At the onset of the hearing today, Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan stressed that the SIC didn’t participate in the elections, adding that reserved seats are only allocated to parliamentary parties.

He further underscored that the SIC didn’t submit any list for allocation of reserved seats.

During the hearing, Justice Ishtiaq questioned whether any SIC candidate secured victory in the February 8 polls to which SIC’s lawyer Qazi Anwar replied in the negative.

“Parliament would not be [considered] complete if reserved seats are left vacant,” the judge said adding that the court would revoke the interim relief given in the said case.

Highlighting that the SIC chief himself contested the election as an independent candidate, Justice Arshad inquired about whether the SIC submitted the list for allocation of reserved seats by February 21.

To this, the petitioner’s lawyer said that the SIC only submitted the list for reserved seats after the PTI-backed independent candidates had joined the party.

More to follow….