SC full court hearing SIC reserved seats today

Islamabad: The direct hearing of the case against Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) not getting reserved seats is going on in the Supreme Court.

A full court consisting of 13 judges headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa is hearing the case related to reserved seats. Justice Musrat Hilali is not part of the full court due to ill health.

SIC lawyer Faisal Siddiqui and Advocate General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Shah Faisal Atman Khel appeared before the Supreme Court.

Faisal Siddiqui said that there are two different petitions before the court, while Advocate General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that a petition for contempt of court has been filed against our government in Peshawar High Court (PHC). The Supreme Court has suspended the relevant decision of the PHC on the first hearing.

Kanwal Shozab's lawyer Salman Akram Raja said that Kanwal has filed a separate application to become a party, on which the Chief Justice said let Faisal Siddiqui finish his arguments and then we will hear you too.

Chief Justice asked who are the opposing parties in the case. Who were the beneficiaries who were made parties? On which Faisal Siddiqui replied that those who were given additional seats are the beneficiaries, in total there are 77 disputed seats.

Justice Faez Isa asked how many seats of the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies, give the details. Faisal answered that 22 National Assembly seats and 55 provincial seats are disputed.

Lawyer Siddiqui said that two seats are disputed in Sindh, one was given to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the other to the Mutahidda Qoumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), while 21 seats are disputed in the Punjab Assembly, of which 19 were won by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), one by the PPP, and one by the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP). A disputed seat was won by the PML-N and PPP each.

He said that Jamat-e-Ulema Islami-Fazl (JUI-F) got eight disputed seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, PML-N and PPP also got five seats each in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. PTI Parliamentarian (PTIP) got one seat and Awami National Party (ANP got one seat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The three disputed seats of minorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were also given to other parties.

Justice Hassan Azhar Rizvi asked how many seats these parties have won. On which the lawyer of the SIC told the court the details of the seats of all the parties have been submitted to the court.

Muslim League-N, Peoples Party and JUI-F opposed the appeal of the Sunni Ittehad Council.

The Chief Justice of Pakistan while talking to JUI-F lawyer Kamran Murtaza asked about the full name of his party. On which Kamran said the name of our party is Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam Pakistan.

Justice Jamal Mandukhel inquired if ‘F’ is removed from your party, what will be the status? On which lawyer replied that if the leader of the party leaves, the party has no status.

Chief Justice Qazi inquired whether there is anyone from ANP and IPP. On which lawyer Faisal Siddiqui said that there is no one from ANP and IPP.

The lawyer SIC told the court that the candidates had affixed the certificate. The Election Commission said that you are an independent candidate, upon which Justice Jamal Mandukhel asked whether the Election Commission has the authority to declare someone independent. When the party is also saying that this is our candidate, what authority does the ECP have after that if the candidate also calls the party his own.

Qazi Faez Isa asked if any of the beneficiary parties supported the SIC in the court. On which all the parties opposed the request of the SIC.

Justice Qazi Faiz Isa remarked that all of you want to keep additional allotted seats.

Background

Earlier in May, the Supreme Court had suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) decision to allocate reserved seats of the Sunni Ittehad Council to other parties.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah had remarked during the hearing that the mandate given by the people should be properly represented in the Parliament.

The court had referred the matter of reserved seats to the Judges Committee to decide whether the same bench would hear the case or a larger bench would be constituted.

On March 4, the ECP, while accepting the requests of the opposition parties, decided that the seats of the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies would not remain vacant and would be allotted through the proportional representation process based on the seats won by the political parties.

As a result of this development, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed Sunni Ittehad Council lost a total of 77 reserved seats, 23 National Assembly seats (20 women and three minorities), 25 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seats (21 women and four minorities), included two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and three minorities).

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) had also rejected the petitions filed by the SIC for reserved seats for women and minorities.

The SIC had challenged the Election Commission of Pakistan's decision not to allot reserved seats for women and minorities.

More to follow...