PPP, PML-N to get SIC reserved seats as Supreme Court announces short order in case

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan’s Constitutional Bench on Friday rejected Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI)-backed Sunni Ittehad Council’s plea, seeking reserved seats in the national and all provincial assemblies on the basis of its general seats, ARY News reported.

The Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench released a short verdict following a series of at least 17 hearings and set aside its earlier judgment and restored the Peshawar High Court that ruled that the reserved seats would be distributed among other parties.

When a panel of 11 judges, presided over by Justice Aminuddin Khan, recommenced the hearing on Friday, Justice Salahuddin Panhwar recused himself from the bench. Justice Panhwar stated he wished to review his brief verdict before stepping down from the case.

Initially, a 13-member Constitutional Bench (CB), led by Justice Aminuddin Khan, began hearing the review petitions on May 6. However, Justices Ayesha A Malik and Justice Aqeel Abbasi deemed the applications inadmissible and opted out of further proceedings, with the chief judge of the CB observing that their withdrawal was of their own accord.

The Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench has ruled that PTI is ineligible for reserved seats, nullifying a decision made on July 12.

The bench upheld the Peshawar High Court’s ruling, allocating the reserved seats to parties including PML-N, PPP, and JUI-F, among others.

The court accepted review petitions challenging the earlier decision to grant PTI reserved seats and directed the Election Commission to rehear the applications of 80 members.

The decision was reached with a 7-3 majority, approving the review petitions.

The majority included Justices Aminuddin Khan, Musarrat Hilali, Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Shahid Bilal, Hashim Kakar, Amir Farooq, and Ali Baqar Najafi. Justice Aminuddin Khan, heading the Constitutional Bench, read out the verdict.

 

Reserved seats issue

The issue came to limelight after over 80 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) backed independent candidates emerged victorious in the February 8 elections.

The SIC then approached the ECP on February 21 seeking allocation of reserved seats.

However, the PTI suffered a setback after the electoral body, citing the party’s failure to submit its list of candidates, denied allocating the reserved seats to the SIC via its 4-1 majority verdict on March 4.

The election commission distributed the reserved seats for women and minorities among other political parties.

The PTI-backed SIC had approached the court after the ECP refused to allocate the seats due to the party’s failure to submit its list of candidates before the deadline. The Peshawar High Court (PHC) upheld the ECP’s decision, leading the SIC to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court initially ruled on July 12 that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was eligible for reserved seats, contradicting the Election Commission’s March 1 decision.

The ruling was reaffirmed in a detailed judgment released last month.

On 18 October, Supreme Court in another clarification reiterated that amendments to the Election Act cannot nullify its July 12 ruling on the reserved seats case.

“ECP is bound to implement Supreme Court decisions,” stated the judges in today’s clarification.