By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), allied with the independent lawmakers backed by the former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, filed a Supreme Court petition on Monday, challenging a provincial high court ruling that denied the party reserved seats for women and minorities.
The SIC, which became a sanctuary for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates after their party-less electoral victory on February 8, argues that the Peshawar High Court’s March 14 interpretation of the proportional representation system is incorrect.
The lawmakers who had backed Khan’s party had contested the elections without a party symbol, which was denied on technical grounds, and later joined the religious alliance.
The council contends that the high court’s verdict contradicts Articles 51 and 106 of the constitution. These articles support a proportional representation system based on the total number of general seats a party wins in the assembly, irrespective of direct election participation.
The watchdog Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had previously said that the SIC did not qualify for the reserved seats, citing the absence of a pre-election party list for these positions as mandated by law.
The commission said the SIC, which had been joined by Khan’s PTI party-backed independent candidates after the elections, had failed to submit a priority list for the reserved seats before the deadline, which was a “mandatory” requirement.
The decision was a blow to Khan’s party, which had hoped to increase its strength in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament by securing some of the 60 seats reserved for women and 10 for minorities.
Under Pakistan’s election rules, parties are allocated 70 reserved seats in proportion to the number of seats they win. This completes the National Assembly’s total strength of 336 seats.
Despite these challenges, Khan’s candidates secured the most seats in the national election. Khan’s party had won 92 of the 272 directly elected seats in the elections, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz with 79 and the Pakistan Peoples Party with 54.
This legal challenge comes as the PTI faces a series of setbacks, with Khan himself serving jail time following multiple convictions.
The SIC, through its chairman and senior counsel, maintains that the requirement to submit lists for reserved seats before the general election applies only to parties contesting the election, not to those that become political parties in the assembly through the joining of independent candidates.
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