PPP takes cue from PML-N, files review petition on SC reserved seats verdict

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 on Tuesday.

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.

It further said that the 15-day grace period given to the 41 independent candidates to join a political party was in “stark contradiction” to the Constitution.

“PTI neither filed any case before the ECP, nor before Peshawar High Court, nor before the Supreme Court, hence, it is not entitled to any relief, let alone a relief which was not even pleaded,” the petition argued.

The short order, the petition said, had not taken into account that the 80 MNAs had filed their nomination papers as independent candidates and thereafter joined the SIC.

“None has even come forward to state otherwise, therefore, the assumption in the (short order) that the said MNAs are PTI candidates is with respect liable to be reviewed.”

Since the short order did not address the issues of whether seats could be left vacant or would have to be distributed amongst the political parties contesting for those seats and the “proportional representation system of political parties lists of candidates”, the review petition urged the SC to recall the judgement.

The PML-N on July 15 had also sought the verdict’s review, contending that the full bench of the top court, instead of the interpretation of the Constitution, entered the domain of legislation which was the prerogative of the Parliament.

In its review petition moved through Barrister Haris Azmat, PML-N requested the apex court to not only recall the verdict in the SIC case but also suspend its operation until the pendency of the present matter, arguing that the PTI was a separate party and not entitled to the relief when it had neither filed any such plea before the ECP nor before any court.

The reserved seats issue

In a 4-1 verdict in March, the ECP had ruled that the SIC was 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”.

The commission had also decided to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties, with the PML-N and the PPP becoming major beneficiaries with 16 and five additional seats while the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) was given four. Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.

Later the same month, the PHC had dismissed an SIC plea challenging the ECP decision and denied it reserved seats.

In April, the SIC filed a petition before the SC — moved by party chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza — seeking to set aside the PHC judgment.

The apex court on May 6 had suspended the March 14 PHC judgment as well as the March 1 ECP decision to deprive the SIC of seats reserved for women and minorities.

The SC had also ordered placing the present petitions before the three-judge committee that determines the constitution of the bench for the reconstitution of a larger bench when Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan highlighted that under Section 4 of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023, the present case should be heard by a larger bench since the issue concerns the interpretation of constitutional provisions.

The ECP subsequently suspended victory notifications of as many as 77 members of the national and provincial assemblies elected on those seats.

The suspended lawmakers include 44 from PML-N, 15 from PPP, 13 from JUI-F, and one each from PML-Q, IPP, PTI-P, MQM-P, and ANP.

Resultantly, the ruling coalition lost a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Parliament for now, with its numerical strength shrinking to 209 from 228. In the House of 336, the magic figure to attain a two-thirds majority comes to 224.

The PML-N’s strength in the House reduced from 121 to 107 while PPP’s from 72 to 67.

Those suspended include 22 members of the National Assembly elected on reserved seats for women and minorities. They include 14 from PML-N, five from PPP, and three from JUI-F.

Headed by the CJP, a full court meeting on July 10 had considered various aspects of the controversy at length since the case is of first impression and will have a far-reaching impact on the allotment of the reserved seats among political parties in the legislature in the future as well.

The real controversy before the court was how to deal with the reserved seats if they are neither doled out to other parties having a presence in Parliament and provincial assemblies nor allotted to the SIC that did not contest the Feb 8 general elections and thus failed to secure a single seat — a legal requirement for the allotment of reserved seats according to the ECP.

The SIC, however, argued that under the concept of a proportionate representation system, it was not a constitutional requirement for the allocation of reserved seats that a political party having general seats in the assemblies had contested the general elections.

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