Babar Hassan Bharwana, the ECP member from Punjab, has stated that the reserved seats should not be allocated to other political parties as the electoral authority refused to give seats fixed for women and non-Muslims to the Sunni Ittehad Council.

“With due regard, I am partially agreeing with my learned brother members to the extent that the reserved seats cannot be allocated to the SIC, as priority list has not been submitted in time by the said political party which is the basic requirement of law and it cannot be submitted at later stage after conduct of election,” he said in his dissenting note attached with the 22-page order.

In its 4-1 verdict, the country’s top electoral authority said that the SIC was not entitled to reserved seats and decided not to allot seats to the party. The ECP also decided to allot the remaining seats to other political parties.

The ECP rejected the SIC’s petition seeking the allocation of reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies.

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“However, I have dissenting views with regard to allocation of seats by way of proportional representation to other political parties. In my opinion Article 51(6-d), and Article 106(3-c) of the Constitution clearly states that reserved seats will be allocated to the political parties on the basis of total number of general seats secured by each political party from the province concerned in the National Assembly or such reserved seats by each political party in the provincial assembly.”

Such seats shall remain vacant till the time any such amendment in articles 51 and 106 of the Constitution is made by Parliament, he added.