The Supreme Court of Pakistan adjourned a case regarding the allocation of reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) till Tuesday.
A 13-member full court bench, headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, heard the case. The decision to form a full court was made by the Practice and Procedure Committee.
The bench included Justices Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Munib Akhtar, Yahya Afridi, Aminuddin Khan, Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Ayesha Malik, Athar Minallah, Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Irfan Saadat Khan and Naeem Akhtar Afghan
Justice Musarrat Hilali was not part of the bench due to illness.
Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa remarked that the public can never be alienated from the electoral process.
During the hearing, Justice Athar Minallah inquired whether the Election Commission could take action against a political party. He asked if the Sunni Ittehad Council is registered as a political party.
Justice Amin-ud-Din asked if the Sunni Ittehad Council contested the elections as a political party. Justice Jamal remarked that it was being implied that PTI has ended and democracy is finished.
SIC’s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqui, told the court that a total of 77 or 78 reserved seats were under dispute in the National and three provincial assemblies.
The reserved seats include seats for both women and minorities.
To clear up confusion over whether 22 or 23 seats in the National Assembly were disputed, the ECP counsel was called to the rostrum who confirmed the number as 23.
Justice Isa inquired with Siddiqi about the party-wise distribution of the additional seats that had been allocated to them. The counsel provided this information as requested. Siddiqi then also furnished the court with details regarding the reserved seats in the provincial assemblies.
At one point in the case, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail noted that the public did not vote for independent candidates but those nominated by the PTI in the February 8 general elections.
Justice Mandokhail noted, “The public did not vote for an independent candidate but rather the candidates being supported by a political party”. “This was the people’s right; the people voted for the PTI,” he added.
It is worth noting that the Supreme Court has already suspended the additional seats allocated to the government coalition.
On May 6, the Supreme Court provided significant relief to the SIC by suspending the Peshawar High Court and Election Commission’s decision regarding the allocation of reserved seats to other parties.
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According to the hearing order, the Election Commission’s lawyer argued that the SIC did not participate in the elections. The Election Commission maintained that winning at least one seat is mandatory for reserved seats. The Attorney General agreed with the Election Commission’s lawyer.
The order stated that due to the constitutional interpretation involved, the matter was referred to the Judges Committee for the formation of a larger bench. The next hearing of the case had then been scheduled for June 3.
