PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has dismissed the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) petition challenging the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) ruling that denied reserved seats to the party. As per the media reports, the Peshawar High Court “unanimously rejected” the pela filed by the party.
Earlier, the Peshawar High Court reserved its decision on Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) petition challenging the ECP’s ruling that denied allocating reserved seats to the party. The Peshawar High Court resumed the hearing being conducted by a five-member bench led by Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and comprising Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, Justice Ijaz Anwar, Justice Arshad Ali and Justice Shakeel Ahmad.
Barrister Ali Zafar continued his arguments and also submitted that the PTI was deprived of its symbol days before general elections in the country. The Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld the verdict of the ECP to deprive the PTI of its election symbol following which candidates were given different symbols to contest election as independent candidates.
Barrister Ali Zafar said that after winning the polls as independent candidates, they had joined the SIC. He told the court that the Election Commission of Pakistan was bound to allot around 78 seats to the SIC.
The Peshawar High Court inquired whether an independent candidate can get reserved seats if he wanted to be independent.
The lawyer replied in the negative and said that the independent candidates have to join a political party. The court remarked that a political party who do not contest polls is not entitled to reserved seats.
