Peshawar High Court restored a decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan denying the use of the bat symbol to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

The Peshawar High Court and Lahore High Court separately heard on Wednesday petitions about the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) decision to take away PTI’s electoral symbol of ‘bat’. The two high courts had reserved their judgments.

PTI wants the ECP to restore its electoral symbol, bat. It approached the Peshawar High Court (PHC) in the final week of December and a single member ruled in its favour.

However, the ECP had filed a review petition against the PHC’s single bench judgment.

On the other hand, PTI is seeking a court order against ECP’s refusal to implement the PHC single bench judgment and grant it the bat symbol.

Pehsawar High Court

Justice Ejaz Khan at Peshawar High Court heard the review petition filed by the ECP against the single bench order on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday, PTI’s counsel Qazi Anwar argued before the court that ECP’s review petition against PHC’s earlier decision was against the law. He also said that ECP was not implementing the PHC order restoring the PTI instra-party election and bat symbol.

Since the ECP lawyer had already completed his arguments on Tuesday, the court reserved its judgment after hearing Qazi Anwar.

The ECP maintained before the PHC that PTI had filed a similar petition before the Lahore High Court and then approached the PHC without waiting for a decision.

Lahore High Court

Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court heard a PTI petition against the ECP decision.

The PTI counsel told the court that the Punjab Election Commission was not implementing the PHC judgement restoring its intra-party election.

Justice Jawad Hasan raised questions on the PTI petition and asked if the Punjab Election Commission was bound to implement PHC judgment or whether a provincial election commission could go against the Chief Election Commission of Pakistan.

Justice Hasan later reserved the judgement, which is yet to be announced.