ISLAMABAD: Following in the footsteps of its coalition partner PML-N, the PPP has filed a review petition challenging the Supreme Court’s verdict on the reserved seats case, it emerged.
In a landmark ruling on July 12, the top court had declared Imran Khan’s PTI eligible for seats reserved for women and minorities, dealing a major setback to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s ruling alliance. The verdict means that the PTI is poised to become the single largest party in the National Assembly.
The court had given its verdict after hearing a set of appeals moved by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) against the denial of the reserved seats to it by the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
PTI-backed candidates, who had contested and won the February 8 elections as independents after their party was stripped of its election symbol, had joined the SIC to form a coalition of convenience.The SC annulled the PHC’s decision and declared the election regulator’s ruling null and void, citing it as unconstitutional.
The PPP’s petition, a copy of which became available to Dawn.com today, contended that the court’s short order following the verdict failed to address the key controversy: whether the SIC should be allocated the reserved seats or if independent candidates could join a party that did not win any general seats in Parliament.
Filed through Advocate Farooq Naek, the petition further questioned whether reserved seats could be granted to a political party whose candidates had not even filed nomination papers within the time frame provided in the election schedule.
“By carving out a procedure which is not provided under the Constitution, the order under review might have gone into the realm of creating and not just interpreting the Constitution which is against the long-standing jurisprudence of this Honourable Court”, the petition stated.
“It has been stated innumerable times by this Court that the function of the Court is interpretation, not legislation.”The petition argued that the issue of granting the reserved seats to PTI “was not even in the pleadings of the SIC”, and therefore could not be granted by the SC.
