ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) challenge against the Peshawar High Court (PHC) verdict upholding the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision denying them reserved seats.
A 13-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa conducted the hearing today with advocate Salman Akram Raja, representing Kanwal Shauzab, and Faisal Siddiqui of SIC presenting their arguments before the court.
Also sitting on the bench are 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 issue of reserved seats first came to light after independent candidates backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won the February 8 elections and subsequently joined the SIC in a bid to win seats reserved for minorities and women.
However, the PTI suffered a setback after the ECP refused to allot the SIC reserved seats on the grounds that the party had not submitted its candidate list.
The party then appealed to the PHC, which upheld the election 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 has significance as PTI-backed independent candidates, who form the majority of opposition benches, lost as many as 77 reserved seats in the NA and provincial assemblies as a result of the PHC verdict.
Meanwhile, PTI has also filed an application to become a party in the said case, alleging that the former ruling party and SIC were ready to provide a list of candidates for allotment but were denied permission to submit it.
ECP, federal government opposes SIC’s plea
However, the SIC’s plea was opposed by both the federal government and the electoral body.
In its submission to the court through Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan, the government urged the apex court to dismiss the SIC’s plea emphasizing that reserved seats for minorities and women could be given to a political party that contested the polls. and has won at least one mandate in addition to listing a list of candidates based on the total number of mandates it has won under the law.
Meanwhile, the ECP has also adopted a somewhat similar argument that the party is not eligible to win reserved seats as it did not submit its candidate list before the January 24 deadline.
Besides, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) also submitted its written arguments to the court that the SIC was not entitled to the reserved seats as it had neither contested the February 8 polls nor provided a list of candidates.
He also argues that the party did not win a single seat which, according to the written submission, was necessary for allotment of 1 reserved seat.
“None of the SIC members who applied for the reserved seats submitted their nomination papers, let alone with the mandatory requirement to submit them with the list,” it said, adding that since the nomination papers were never submitted, they were never scrutinized and none were considered for being eligible to stand for election.
