The Supreme Court took a significant step on Monday by suspending the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict regarding reserved seats, following the acceptance of a plea from the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) against the high court’s decision.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had previously dismissed the SIC’s request for reserved seats, leading to their deprivation of such seats.
“We are acknowledging the [SIC’s] pleas [against the PHC verdict],” stated Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, questioning the legal basis for allocating seats to other parties.
A three-member bench, led by Justice Shah and comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah, heard the plea filed by the SIC through Advocate Faisal Siddiqui last month. The Supreme Court announced that it would commence daily hearings on the matter from June 3 and prevented members who had taken oaths on reserved seats from participating in legislative voting.
The court emphasized that the issue pertains specifically to the allocation of reserved seats to political parties at a later stage.
In March, a five-member bench of the PHC, headed by Chief Justice Ibrahim Khan, dismissed the SIC’s petition against the ECP’s decision to deny them reserved seats. The ECP determined that the SIC was ineligible for reserved seats designated for women and minorities due to procedural and legal deficiencies, as well as violations of constitutional provisions.
The ECP’s decision stipulated that seats in the National Assembly would not remain vacant and would instead be allocated through a proportional representation process based on seats won by political parties.
In response, the SIC approached the Supreme Court last month, urging the court to assign the party its entitled 67 women and 11 minority seats in the National and provincial assemblies, while overturning the PHC ruling.
The SIC’s argument asserts that reserved seats for women and minorities are distributed among parties in the national and provincial assemblies based on proportional representation, with no party entitled to more reserved seats than its representation warrants.
The allocation of reserved seats has been a contentious issue between the SIC, primarily comprising Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-backed independent candidates, and ruling parties such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and others. Numerous members of these parties, including the PPP, PML-N, and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), have taken oaths on reserved seats following the PHC’s verdict.