Supreme Court on SIC Petition: The Supreme Court resumed hearing the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) petition against the denial of seats reserved for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies. A full court 13-member bench, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, is handling the SIC petition. The SIC is an ally of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The bench also includes Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muneeb Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha A Malik, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan.
PTI joined forces with the SIC before the February 8 elections. This partnership came after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) stripped PTI of its electoral symbol, a decision upheld by the top court. Despite this, the election commission did not allocate reserved seats to the SIC, citing its failure to submit its list of candidates.
The SIC then approached the Peshawar High Court (PHC) regarding this issue. The PHC upheld the electoral body’s decision. In April, SIC chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza, along with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly speaker, moved the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the PHC verdict and secure 67 women and 11 minority seats in the assemblies.
On May 6, a three-member Supreme Court bench, led by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and including Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah, suspended the PHC verdict. They referred the matter to a larger bench for constitutional interpretation.
In the previous hearing, the chief justice mentioned that issues would have been resolved if PTI had held intra-party polls. Last week, the ECP submitted its response to the apex court, stating that SIC does not qualify for reserved seats as it does not allow non-Muslims to join.
The ECP informed the court that SIC failed to submit the candidate list before the January 24 deadline. The PTI candidates were asked to submit certificates for the PTI-Nazriati (PTI-N) election symbol. Later, these candidates withdrew the PTI-N symbol and were declared independent candidates.
The ECP stated that these independent candidates joined SIC, leading to a 4-1 verdict against allocating reserved seats to the PTI-backed SIC. The PHC upheld this ruling. SIC has submitted additional documents to the apex court, including the ECP’s notification of success for two National Assembly lawmakers-elect, seeking to add these to the judicial record.
