ISLAMABAD: Full Court of the Supreme Court will announce judgment on the women and non-Muslims reserved seats allocated over and above the initially allotted reserved seats to the political parties today (Friday) at 12:00.
A Full Court, headed by Chief Justice and comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminuddin Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha Malik, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, on July 09, upon the completion of arguments of Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawyers against the Peshawar High Court (PHC)’s verdict on reserved seats of women and non-Muslims had reserved the judgment.
The Full Court on Wednesday and Thursday held meetings and deliberated upon the decision.
Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan, the counsels of Election Commissions of Pakistan (ECP) Sikandar Bashir Mohmand, and Makhdoom Ali Khan, who represented affected candidates, elected on reserved seats, argued that the SIC is no longer entitled to the reserved seats as it has neither contested General Elections February 2024 nor won any seats.
The SIC had been joined by PTI-backed independent candidates after they won the February 8 elections as their party was deprived of its electoral symbol “bat” because of the Supreme Court’s judgment on PTI’s intra-party elections.
The ECP in a 4-1 verdict in March 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 (JUI-F) was given four.
Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.
The same month, the PHC had dismissed an SIC’s plea challenging the ECP’s decision and denied it reserved seats. In April, the SIC filed a petition before the apex court — moved by party chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza — seeking to set aside the PHC’s judgment.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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