The Supreme Court of Pakistan puts off trials till tomorrow.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan deposits tainted the trial of reserved seats till tomorrow.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s highly anticipated judgment on the matter of reserved seats for women and non-Muslims has been put off till tomorrow.
A 13-member full court will proclaim the decision at noon. A previous cause list had said that a three-member bench would declare the verdict at 9 a.m. The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) held a large protest outside the apex court today as the verdict was awaited. The Supreme Court had reserved its verdict on Tuesday after closing the hearing on a set of appeals moved by the SIC.
The PTI had joined the Sunni Itthad Council after winning the elections on February 8, 2024, as their party had been underprivileged by its voting symbol, ‘bat’.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ruled in March 2024 that the SIC did not have the right to claim quotas for reserved seats. “due to having non-curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party lists for reserved seats.”.
The Election Commission of Pakistan had decided to distribute the reserved seats among other parliamentary parties, with the PML-N and the PPP becoming major beneficiaries with 16 and five additional seats, respectively. The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) has been given four seats. Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.
Later the same month, while ruling on an SIC plea, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) dismissed an SIC plea challenging the ECP decision and denied it reserved seats.
The Election Commission of Pakistan afterward postponed conquest notifications for as many as 77 members of the national and provincial assemblies elected to those seats.
