As the reserved seats saga continues to grip the country’s political landscape, Supreme Court’s Justice Yahya Afridi’s separate note has been issued by the apex court with the puisne judge directing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to revisit its notification of returned candidates on the reserved seats.
A returned candidate, who declared himself to represent a political party, duly submitted a certificate of nomination and didn’t withdraw the declaration via any written intimation, has to be declared a returned candidate representing the said political party and not otherwise, reads Justice Yahya’s note originally dated August 13, 2024.Play Video
The development comes a day after the top court issued the detailed judgment of its July 12 short order which had declared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) eligible for reserved seats.
The 8-5 majority judgment was supported by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha A Malik, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan.
Whereas, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail had a differing order, which was supported by Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan and Naeem Akhtar Afghan — with the latter two issuing a dissenting note on August 3.
The 70-page judgment, penned by Justice Shah, on Monday declared the ECP’s March 1 having no legal value wherein it had denied the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) plea for allocation of reserved seats and had instead decided to give them to other political parties on the principle of proportional representation.
Continuing on his note, Justice Yahya has said that the returned candidates need to be declared from belonging to a party or otherwise within seven days after “providing an opportunity of hearing to any affected party and, thus, the reserved seats for woman and non-Muslims are to be allotted to all deserving political parties, accordingly”.
