The PTI moves the SC to enforce reserved seats, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has filed a civil miscellaneous application with the Supreme Court in response to the objection raised by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding the implementation of the top court’s reserved seats ruling. The PTI claims that the ECP wants to “delay” the process by claiming that the election process would be delayed.
In its well-anticipated verdict on July 12, the Supreme Court decided that the former ruling party may have seats reserved for women and minorities in all legislatures, including the National Assembly, a decision that is expected to lead the PTI to become the largest party in the lower house of parliament in the near future.
On July 29, the Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh assemblies declared 93 lawmakers from the Imran Khan-led party to have become “returned candidates”, as per the judicial order that had partly implemented the judicial order.
It was also reported that 39 PTI MPs from the National Assembly had also been listed as the official candidates of the party by the polling regulator prior to this declaration.
There was, however, a request made by the ECP to the top court on July 25 seeking a ruling on certain legal and factual issues related to the order.
Afterwards, on August 7, the chief election commissioner of Pakistan filed a review petition against the short verdict in the case between the PTI and the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) in the top court of Pakistan.
A petition filed by the ECP on behalf of 80 independent candidates assuring them that they wanted to join the SIC, stated that 80 independent candidates had decided to do so and submitted the necessary documents to prove their allegiance to the party.
In addition to this, it was stated that the SIC had neither participated in the nationwide voting process of February 8 as a political party nor submitted any list of candidates for the reserved seats in the National Assembly.
Earlier today, Imran Khan’s party, which is currently imprisoned, filed a petition through its counsel, Uzair Bhandari advocate, asking the apex court to dismiss the Election Commission’s review petition, along with asking the Supreme Court for clarification regarding the short order that was executed on July 12.
The petition of the PTI also mentioned the objection of the Electoral Commission, whereby it said that the ECP had averred incorrectly that “the commission faces difficulty in implementing the provisions of the ibid order considering that the PTI has no institutional structure for confirming statements of MNAs and MPAs at the moment”.
As part of the Imran-led party’s application for the court’s directives, the court also asked the election conducting body to accept the affidavits of allegiance submitted by the independent lawmakers, which were signed by Barrister Gohar Khan as the elected Chairman and Omar Ayub as the General Secretary, respectively.
As part of its request, the party also asked the court to direct the ECP to implement the short order dated July 12.
It is alleged by the PTI that the Election Commission has filed the application with mala fide intentions, that is, it is being used to circumvent and delay the implementation of the short order in a bid to deny the party their “rightful share of the reserved seats”, which she also defines as “the majority shares of the reserved seats”.
In response to the EC’s objection regarding the PTI’s organisational structure, the plea claimed to have addressed that issue. It stated that the PTI had taken all necessary steps to ensure that the party’s organizational structure was in full compliance with the applicable law.
Furthermore, in response to another objection, the plea went on to point out that the party conducted its intra-party elections on March 3, 2024, in which Barrister Gohar Khan was elect unopposed as chairman and Omar Ayub Khan was similarly elected unopposed as general secretary of the party.
During the course of the following days the party was then asked by the ECP to submit details of the intra-party elections it had organized on March 4, 2024, according to the plea. It was also noted that the ECP had written a number of letters to the PTI, some directed to Barrister Gohar Khan, who is referred to as the Party’s Chairman in these letters.
Timenews1 provided that news.
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