PTI Wins: What does the Supreme Court verdict mean?

In a significant political and symbolic win for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), a thirteen-member bench of the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the party has the legal and constitutional right to reserved seats.

It was Justice Mansoor Ali Shah who, with his announcement of the 8-5 majority verdict, dismissed the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) order that had upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) ruling denying reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council, which was backed by PTI.

Geo News reported that eight Justices, Justices Athar Minallah, Shahid Waheed, Muneeb Akhtar, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Ayesha Malik, Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi, and Irfan Saadat Khan supported the verdict.

The Supreme Court, in its verdict today, declared that a party’s lack of electoral symbol does not affect its legal rights to participate in an election.

The Supreme Court also stated that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) ‘misinterpreted’ its January 13 verdict of taking away PTI’s bat symbol and they never ruled that PTI could not participate in the elections.

“PTI was and is a political party, which secured general seats in the national and provincial assemblies in the general elections of 2024,” emphasised the verdict.

The ruling said that PTI should present a list of eligible candidates for the reserved seats to the electoral body within 15 days after the verdict.

TIMELINE

On 13 January 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to revoke PTI’s electoral symbol ‘bat’. PTI leadership called the decision “unfair and damaging to democratic constitutionalism.”

Following this landmark decision, PTI members contested the general elections as the party-backed independent candidates with their own allotted electoral symbols.

Following the February 8 elections, PTI-backed independents won the highest number of seats, making history in the country.

To get the reserved seats according to proportional representation, PTI-backed independents joined the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) because the laws dictated that only a political party could be eligible for the allocation of reserved seats.

The SIC then approached the ECP on February 21 seeking allocation of reserved seats. However, the PTI suffered a setback after the electoral body, citing the party’s failure to submit its list of candidates, denied allocating the reserved seats to the SIC via its 4-1 majority verdict on March 4.

The party then approached the Peshawar High Court on March 6, which, in yet another setback to the party, upheld the electoral body’s decision on the matter in its March 14 ruling.

Subsequently, on April 2, the SIC moved the SC seeking to set aside the PHC verdict.