Tariq Saeed Peshawar
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf backed Sunni Ittehad Council that is ruling the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is apprehended to be denied the reserved seats even in the KP assembly as the Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan stressed during hearing at Peshawar High court that the SIC neither participated in the elections nor it enjoyed the status of the parliamentary party and cannot be awarded reserved seats in any case.
“Only allocated to parliamentary parties are allotted reserved seats, moreover SIC didn’t submit any list for allocation of reserved seats”. Awan representing the PML N lead federal government told the court on Wednesday.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), it may be recalled , had on March 4, accepted applications of the opposing 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 of political parties on the basis of seats won by political parties.
The development resulted in PTI-backed SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats including 23 National Assembly seats (20 women and 3 minorities), 25 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seats (21 women and 4 minorities), two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and 3 minorities).
However, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) Peshawar while acceding to the request of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) had on March 6 stayed the oath-taking of lawmakers notified on reserved seats that were denied to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI)-backed Sunni Ittehad Council. A five-member bench led by PHC Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and comprising Justice Ijaz Anwar, Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Arshad Ali took up the SIC’s plea against the ECP’s ruling wherein it had denied allocating the reserved seats to the party.
During the hearing of the case on Wednesday, the PHC bench also expressed displeasure over the absence of PTI counsels Barrister Ali Zafar and Babar Awan.
SIC counsel Advocate Qazi Anwar argued before the bench that the PTI-backed independent candidates joined the SIC after winning the election, hence the party is eligible for the reserved seats for women and minorities. Attorney General Awan told the Peshawar High Court that PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council is not entitled to reserved seats as the party did not submit a list to the Election Commission of Pakistan before the general elections 2024 hence the reserved seats cannot be awarded to the SIC in any case.
