SC adjourns SIC’s reserved seats case till Tuesday

The Supreme Court on Monday sought documents and formula from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) under which the reserved seats were allotted to political parties in 2018 and 2024.

The 13-member SC bench presided over by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa adjourned hearing of the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) case regarding the reserved seats till Tuesday.

The bench comprised justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Amin-ud-Din Khan, Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Athar Minallah, Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Irfan Saadat Khan and Naeem Akhtar Afghan.

During the course of proceedings, the chief justice remarked that the issue of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) intra-party elections had been coming to the fore for many years. The party was repeatedly requesting for time for the elections but it was an admitted fact that it could not hold the same despite taking a year time, he noted.

Sikandar Bashir, counsel for Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), in his arguments, said the PTI had issued party affiliation certificates and Form 66 with the signatures of Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali to its candidates, which were on the record under the Election Act.

At that time the PTI had not conducted the intra-party elections, he said, adding that the candidates should have file the party affiliation certificates along with the nomination papers to the ECP.

The lawyer said that the blank space specified for party affiliation in the nomination papers meant that the candidates were independent.

Sikandar Bashir said that as the PTI chairman was not elected at the time of submission of certificates, the nomination papers signed by him were not valid.

He said that Hamid Raza submitted his filed his nomination papers on December 22 and party affiliation certificate on January 13, declaring himself as the candidate of the SIC and mentioned alliance with the PTI.

There was no mention of alliance with the PTI in the nomination papers, he said.

To a query, Sikander Bashir said that the ECP did not itself declare a candidate as an independent. “I have seen the nomination papers of Hamid Raza in which he requested to declare him as an independent candidate,” he added. None of the documents of Hamid Raza matched with each other, he added.

The candidate should have filed the party affiliation certificate of SIC, the ECP’s lawyer said.

He further said that on February 8, the PTI informed the ECP about the intra-party elections. The situation might have been different had the party announced its intra-party elections even on February 7, he added.

The ECP lawyer said that the case of Kanwal Shauzab should not be heard as she was not an affected party by the decision. She was in the PTI and heading the women workers wing.

The counsel, subsequently, concluded his arguments.

During the hearing, Advocate General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa adopted the arguments of SIC. However, the advocate generals of Punjab, Federation and Balochistan adopted the arguments of the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP.

AGP Mansoor Usman Awan argued that political parties were eligible for reserved seats only by winning election. The seats in assemblies are filled through general elections and then reserved seats, he said, adding that the reserved seats must be filled as the Constitution “aims to give representation to women and non-Muslims as well”.

He said that the formula relating to the reserved seats was fixed and did not change. “The formula tells how many general seats are required to get a reserved seat”.

The chief justice remarked that the ECP was an independent constitutional body whose job was to conduct elections. “Tell us if there is any unconstitutional work, we will go into details. Same thing happens in every election, no loser has said that the elections were transparent.”