ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court (SC) on Monday suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Peshawar High Court’ (PHC) verdict on Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) reserved seats.

The three-member bench headed by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah suspended the verdict pertaining to the allocation of reserved seats to other political parties.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah said that the case has been fixed for hearing and “we are suspending the ECP and PHC verdicts.”

Shah said that today’s suspension verdict only applies to the allocation of additional seats. He emphasized that the people’s mandate should be represented correctly in Parliament.

Justice Athar Minallah observed that a political party can still contest elections even if it loses its electoral symbol.

It is worth mentioning here that the Peshawar High Court (PHC) earlier dismissed petitions of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) over reserved seats in assemblies.

A five-member bench of the high court gave unanimous decision on the petition as Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim read the reserved verdict.

ECP verdict

Prior to this, Election Commission of Pakistan rejected the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) petition, seeking the allocation of reserved seats following a ‘merger’ with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for this specific purpose.

In the verdict, the ECP said the SIC is not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats due to having “non curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats which is the requirement of law”.

“The seats in the National Assembly shall not remain vacant and will be allotted by proportional representation process of political parties on the basis of seats won by political parties,” the order said.