PESHAWAR: Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the allocation of reserved seats, Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan has said that the stay order is limited to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Speaking to the media after voting for the presidential election in the state assembly, where he was discharging his duties as presiding officer, the chief justice clarified that they were sworn in at the National Assembly (NA) in light of the PHC order. has not committed contempt of court”.
His remarks come as the PHC on Wednesday barred the swearing-in of legislators notified in the aforementioned reserved seats, preventing members from taking oath after the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) moved the court against the electoral body’s decision to allocate reserved seats to other political parties.
The court, whose five-judge panel is hearing the case, then extended the stay order until March 13.
However, despite the court order, four MNAs elected to reserved seats took oath in the lower house to the protest of the opposition benches, who were told that neither NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had received a PHC against the swearing-in of the members nor the legislators who took the oath. in belonged to KP.
Earlier this week, the ECP had rejected the SIC’s request — joined by PTI-backed independent candidates — for allotment of reserved seats.
The Electoral Body instead accepted applications from opposing parties and decided that seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies would not remain vacant and would be allocated by proportional representation of political parties based on the mandates won by the political parties.
In its ruling, the ECP said the SIC could not claim a share in the reserved seats for women “due to incurable procedural and legal defects and violation of the mandatory provisions of the Constitution”.
Reserved seats were given to all political parties according to their strength in the assemblies, except the PTI-backed SIC.
