ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Monday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against the reserved seats verdict that declared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) eligible for reserved seats for minorities and women.
The ruling party has nominated 11 respondents in the plea, including the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and its chairman Hamid Raza, who are praying the court to stay its July 12, 2024 order on reserved seats.
The petitioner argued that the Supreme Court verdict was silent on some points.
The review petition raised a number of questions, including whether SIC should be granted reserved seats.
He asked whether reserved seats can be given to a political party which has not submitted its party list within the stipulated time limit, whether reserved seats can be allotted to a political party whose candidates have not even submitted their candidate list within the time limit set by the Election Commission of Pakistan and if independents could even enter the political party that did not win a single general seat in parliament.
The plea also raised the question of whether the seats could be left vacant or whether they had to be divided among the political parties running for the seats.
The plea was filed in response to last week’s Supreme Court ruling declaring PTI eligible for allotment of reserved seats.
The decision not only paved the way for PTI’s return to Parliament, which was kicked out of the February 8 polls due to the December 2023 ECP decision, but also increased pressure on the coalition alliance by changing the composition of the National Assembly. .
The 8-5 majority verdict declared that the absence or denial of an election symbol in no way affects the constitutional or statutory rights of a political party to participate in elections, whether general or by-election, and to field candidates, and that the commission has a constitutional duty to apply all statutory provisions reasonably.
