Reserved seats case: Supreme Court to announce verdict on Friday

The Supreme Court (SC) will announce its verdict tomorrow (Friday) on the case related to the reserved seats for wom­en and non-Muslims, a cause list issued on Thursday stated.

The SC had reserved its judgment on the case on Tuesday.

The updated cause list stated that the 13-member full court will announce the verdict at 12pm on Friday.

Earlier, the cause list had stated that a three-member bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, Justices Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi would announce the verdict at 9 am.

A full court, headed by CJP Isa, heard the petitions of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) against the Peshawar High Court (PHC)’s verdict on the reserved seats.

The SC earlier suspended the PHC order against allocating reserved seats to the SIC.

The SIC is the new home to PTI-backed independents.

The PHC rejected on March 14 the petitions filed by the SIC for the reserved seats of women and minorities.

The party had challenged the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) verdict of not allocating reserved women and minority seats to the SIC.

The reserved seats issue emerged after more than 80 PTI-backed independent candidates stood victorious in the February 8 elections, who later joined the SIC to claim the seats reserved for minorities and women.

However, in its decision, the ECP said the SIC was not entitled to claim quota for the reserved seats due to having “non-curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats which is the law’s requirement”.