Vacant reserved seats: ECP directed to issue notification about Punjab PA members

LAHORE: Justice Shahid Waheed of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to issue notification of members of Punjab Assembly, against the vacant reserved seats from the priority list of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The court directed the Additional Registrar (Judicial) to communicate the court order to the ECP for compliance.

The court held that there is no barrier to filling the vacant reserved seats from the list of candidates furnished by the PTI, and in doing so, the proportional representation system mentioned in Article 106(3)(c) will not be defeated.

The court allowed the petitions of PTI for issuance of notification of members of the Punjab Assembly, against reserved seats from its priority list and MPA and Punjab Parliamentary Leader of PTI, Muhammad Sibtain Khan, for issuance of notification of nominated members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for reserved seats for women and non-Muslims.

The court allowing the petitions of PTI and MPA Sabtain Khan set aside the order of ECP deferred the filling of the vacant reserved seats till the outcome of bye-election on 20 general seats in the Punjab Provincial Assembly and declared it to be passed without lawful authority and of no legal effect.

The court also dismissed the petition of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) seeking recalculation of quota of reserved seats after disqualification of members of PTI under Article 63-A of the Constitution.

The standpoint of the PTI was that the quota of reserved seats is calculated once after every general election, and is not subject to change subsequently notwithstanding an increase or decrease in the strength of general seats of a political party, whereas the stance of the PML-N, in contrast to the PTI, was that the Constitution does not bar recalculation of quota at a subsequent stage due to the increase or decrease of general seats of a parliamentary party in the Assembly.

The ECP, however, espoused the argument of the PML-N and concluded that, firstly, Article 224(6) of the Constitution does not provide any methodology for filling of vacancies of reserved seats on account of mass scale de-seating of the members of the general seats in the Provincial Assembly, and it is not automatic and is dependent upon strength of general seats in the Provincial Assembly.

Secondly, in the present scenario the electoral college of the Punjab Assembly is not complete due to disqualification and subsequent de-seating of twenty members of general seats of the PTI.

Thirdly, the proportional representation of political parties, election and filling of reserved seats have close nexus with each other, and thus, if the number of general seats goes down then it directly affects the proportional representation of the political party mentioned in Article 106(3)(c) of the Constitution.

The ECP through its consolidated order on June 02 deferred the filling of the vacant reserved seats till the outcome of bye-election on 20 general seats in the Punjab Provincial Assembly, and accordingly disposed of the said three applications.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022