AGP tells PHC: Party that wins in general election deserves reserved seats

PESHAWAR: In the Peshawar High Court, a five-member larger bench headed by Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim on Wednesday heard the case on the petitions filed by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) for the reserved seats of women and minorities has adjourned till today (Thursday).

The bench includes Justice Ijaz Anwar, Justice Atiq Shah, Justice Shakeel Ahmed and Justice Syed Arshad Ali.

Qazi Anwar and Azam Swati represented the SIC in the court while Nayyar Bukhari, Faisal Karim Kundi and Farooq Naik appeared on behalf of the PPP.

At the onset of the hearing today, Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan stressed that the SIC didn't participate in the elections, adding that reserved seats are only allocated to parliamentary parties.

He further underscored that the SIC didn't submit any list for allocation of reserved seats.

The court said that there is no procedure laid down for providing lists for reserved seats in the Election Act.

The court inquired whether any member of the Sunni Ittehad Council had won the election. The chairman of the Sunni Ittehad Council also participated in the election as an independent candidate. When was the list of specific seats collected?

Lawyer Qazi Anwar Advocate said in his arguments that many specific seats of the Sunni Ittehad Council in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan were collected. Seats are created, is there any option in the constitution to distribute the specific seats of one party to other parties.

On which the court said that the Election Commission will take a decision to represent the specific seats? If certain seats are not given to a party, will they remain vacant?

The court said that the ECP has to take a decision on reserved seats. If these are not given to a party, the seats remain vacant.

Later, the court adjourned the hearing till today.

It is pertinent to mention here that the electoral body, on March 4, had accepted applications of the opposing parties and decided that the seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies would not remain vacant and would be allocated by a proportional representation process of political parties on the basis of seats won by political parties.

The development resulted in PTI-backed SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats including 23 National Assembly seats (20 women and 3 minorities), 25 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seats (21 women and 4 minorities), two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and 3 minority).

Following the ECP's verdict, the SIC secured a stay order from the PHC wherein the court had barred the oath-taking of lawmakers notified on reserved seats denied to the party.

However, despite the court's order, four MNAs elected on reserved seats had taken oath in the lower house amid protest by the opposition benches who were told that neither NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had received the PHC's against oathtaking of members nor the lawmakers who were sworn-in belonged to the KP.

Last week, PHC Chief Justice Ibrahim Khan clarified that those who were sworn in in the National Assembly (NA) in light of the PHC order "did not commit contempt of court" and that the court's stay order was limited to KP.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024