SC full court hears Sunni Ittehad Council’s plea against denial of reserved seats – Pakistan

A full bench of the Supreme Court is currently hearing the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) plea against the denial of reserved seats in assemblies for women and minorities.

The SIC had earlier been joined by PTI-backed independent candidates after they won the Feb 8 elections as their party had been deprived of its electoral symbol ‘bat’ in an SC ruling.

On May 6, a three-member SC bench had suspended the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict denying the SIC — the new home for PTI lawmakers-elect — reserved seats.

Later the same month, the PPP — a major beneficiary along with the PML-N of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) March 3 verdict to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties — nominated senior counsel Farooq H. Naek to represent the party in the case.

Last week, a full court had been formed to hear the case, comprising all judges except Justice Musarrat Hilali.

Subsequently, a 13-member bench — comprising Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Aminuddin Khan, Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Ayesha Malik, Athar Minallah, Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Irfan Saadat Khan and Naeem Akhtar Afghan — resumed hearing the case today.

The proceedings are being broadcast live on the SC’s website and YouTube channel.

Legal tussle for reserved seats

In a 4-1 verdict in March, the ECP had ruled that the SIC was not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats “due to having non curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats”.

The commission had also decided to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties, with the PML-N and the PPP becoming major beneficiaries with 16 and five additional seats while the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl was given four.

Later the same month, the PHC had dismissed an SIC plea challenging the ECP decision and denied it reserved seats.

In April, the SIC filed a petition before the SC — moved by party chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza — seeking to set aside the PHC judgment.

Subsequently, a three-member bench headed by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and also including Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah took up the appeal and suspended the PHC and ECP verdicts, clarifying it applied only to the reserved seats distributed over and above the initially allocated ones to political parties.

“It is paramount to prioritise the integrity of the elections so that the Parliament remains a true reflection of the will of the people,” the written order had noted.

In a follow-up to the SC order, the ECP had suspended victory notifications of 77 lawmakers elected on reserved seats that had been denied to the SIC, causing the ruling coalition to lose its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.