ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has formed a larger bench to hear the case concerning the allocation of reserved seats for the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), local media reported on Friday. A 13-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, will hear the case on June 3. Except for the ailing Justice Musarrat Hilali, all other judges of the top court will be part of the bench.
Earlier in May, the SC had suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) verdict to allocate SIC’s reserved seats to other parties.
On March 4, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had accepted applications of the opposition 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 on the basis of seats won by political parties.
The development resulted SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats – 23 NA seats (20 women and 3 minorities), 25 KP Assembly seats (21 women and 4 minorities), two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and 3 minority).
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) also rejected 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) decision of not allocating the reserved women and minority seats to the SIC.
