SIC in assemblies: CJP says PTI’s intra-party elections could have solved problems

Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa observed on Tuesday that all issues concerning the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) plea against denying reserved seats in assemblies for women and minorities could have been avoided if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had held its intra-party elections, Aaj News reported.

However, Justice Muneeb remarked that the Election Commission’s decision to remove the bat symbol had set forth a ‘cascading’ series of errors.

A full-court bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan adjourned hearing the reserved seats case on Tuesday. The case will now be heard on June 24.

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 is hearing the case.

During the hearing on Monday, Justice Minallah said in every period the political parties had been victimised either by depriving them of their names or taking away election symbols.

He said people know why the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) came into existence. At times, it was PPP and then Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and now Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) made to suffer.

He said the court has to see how constitutional and fundamental rights should be interpreted.

The SIC is the new home to PTI-backed independent candidates. The ruling coalition has 224 seats in the NA, which gives it a two-thirds majority in the 336-seat NA.

As many as 21 of the 25 SIC reserved seats were allotted to the ruling coalition in a highly controversial decision issued by ECP this March that attracted a strong public backlash.

The PML-N got 16 of SIC reserved seats and the PPP got five.

If these seats are reallocated to SIC, the ruling coalition’s strength would be reduced to 203 seats, depriving it of two-thirds majority in NA.

In March, a five-member bench, headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja had rejected the SIC’s petition seeking the allocation of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies.