Islamabad:
A Constitutional Bank (CB) of the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request from the Sunita Ittehad (sic) Council to assign seats reserved for the PTI in proportion to 39 MNA that had declared themselves affiliated with the party while archiving the nomination documents for the February 2024 elections.
The CB of eleven members, led by Judge Aminuddin Khan, listened to the requests that challenge the majority order of July 2024 for the allocation of seats reserved to the PTI.
On January 13, 2024, a three -member SC Bank confirmed the order of the Pakistan Electoral Commission (ECP) on December 22, 2023 that declares the intrapartamental surveys of the null and null PTI.
Later, PTI candidates had to dispute the general elections of February 8, 2024 as independents.
Eighty independent candidates arrived at the National Assembly and then joined the SIC in an apparent attempt to claim seats reserved for women and minorities. However, the ECP refused to assign the seats to the party, a decision that the SIC challenged in the Supreme Court.
On July 12, 2024, a complete bank of the Apex court through the majority of 8 to 5 resurrected the PTI as a parliamentary part, and pointed out that 39 of the legislators who had submitted certificates of their affiliation with the PTI along with their nomination documents were already PTI legislators.
The SC ruled that the remaining 41 legislators who had not submitted the affiliation certificates at the time of presenting the nomination documents could now do so within a period of 15 days.
At the last hearing, Judge Jamal Khan Commandkhail had observed that the majority decision declared 41 candidates not affiliated with any of the parties and that the ECP was right in the case of 41 and incorrect in the case of 39.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Judge Muhammad Ali Mazhar asked if the ECP had declared that the 39 legislators belonged to the PTI.
Judge Commandkhail said that, according to the ratio of 80 seats, around 22 or 23 reserved seats must be assigned. Judge Mazhar asked: “If 39 members have been declared as part of the PTI, why haven’t the seats reserved according to that proportion be assigned?”
The general director of the ECP (Law) said that the seats would be assigned according to a general figure of 80. To a consultation of Judge Hasan Azhar Rizvi, he replied that the seats have not been assigned to any other part so far.
The ECP lawyer argued that Parliament had promulgated a law after the verdict of July 13 of SC, stating that once a political affiliation was declared in the nomination documents, it could not be changed. He added that the law was applied retrospectively, and a request for review on the matter was still pending.
Later, the Constitutional Bank of the Supreme Court formally dismissed the request to enforce its decision regarding the allocation of seats reserved for PTI for the 39 members of the Assembly.
Previously, Faisal Siddiqui responded to the objection regarding the extension of the timeline for the reserved seats. He said that after the 2018 elections, the ECP issued a new schedule.
Using a word game, he said when BAP, Baluchistan’s Awami match, which is generally considered the king’s game, was presented, the schedule was broadcast. “After all, Baap is Baap (a father is a father),” he added.
