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As the Supreme Court on Monday took up the case of reserved seats, Justice Munib Akhtar highlighted a “cascading series of errors of law” committed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that “forced” PTI-backed candidates to take on the garb of independents.
“All of these returned candidates were PTI candidates forced by cascading series of errors of law by the ECP to take on the garb of independents,” Justice Akhtar observed.
He added that the matter of reserved seats boiled down to if they were to be “denied those reserved seats simply because now they have taken shelter under[SIC]”.
His remarks came as a full bench of the Supreme Court resumed 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.
In a 4-1 verdict in March, the Election Commission of Pakistan (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. Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.
Later the same month, while ruling on an SIC plea, the PHC had dismissed an SIC plea challenging the ECP decision and denied it reserved seats.
On May 6, a three-member SC bench, hearing the SIC’s petition, suspended the PHC verdict to the extent of reserved seats distributed over and above the initially allocated ones to political parties.
In accordance with the apex court’s May 6 ruling, the ECP had then suspended victory notifications of 77 lawmakers, causing the ruling coalition to lose its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
Last week, a full court had been formed to hear the case, comprising all judges except Justice Musarrat Hilali.
During yesterday’s hearing, Justice Mandokhail had noted that the public did not vote for independent candidates but those nominated by the PTI in the February 8 general elections.
Meanwhile, Justice Shah had suggested that the controversy could be ended if the ECP gave the formerly independent candidate another three days to decide afresh whether to join some other political party.
Today, a 13-member bench — comprising Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Aminuddin 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.
The proceedings are being broadcast live on the SC’s website and its YouTube channel.
Advocate Faisal Siddiqi, representing SIC’s female candidates who were denied the reserved seats, resumed his arguments in the case.
The hearing
At the outset of the hearing, CJP Isa asked Siddiqi if the Constitution made a distinction between a political party and a parliamentary party, to which the latter replied that Article 63A mentioned so.
Justice Isa then asked who the head of the SIC was, remarking that a “lot will flow from that”. Siddiqi responded that he did not have a name but will specify later, adding that in his opinion, the answer was not relevant to the case in focus.
Justice Akhtar noted that the focus should be whether the SIC was a political party or not, rather than the question of it being a parliamentary party as that pertained to the future when the reserved seats would be allocated. He observed that a candidate was independent “only if he declared in the nomination paper ‘I do not belong to any political party’”.
Recalling that the PTI-backed candidates went through the scrutiny process and were elected in the February 8 polls, the judge asserted that “all of those persons were PTI returned candidates”.
“How can rule-making power of the ECP […] go against parent statute?” he asked.
More to follow
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