PTI moves SC against PHC Jan 3 order

The PTI has approached the Supreme Court against an order of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) which stripped the former ruling party of its iconic election symbol of a cricket bat. The party has requested the top court to take up the matter expeditiously in view of the upcoming general elections.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on December 22 invalidated the PTI’s intra-party elections held on December 2 on the instruction of the polls oversight authority. The ECP order also resulted in depriving the party of its election symbol. The PTI moved the PHC against the order whose single-member bench on December 26 suspended the ECP order.

Read ECP gives PTI 20-day ultimatum to hold intra-party polls

The commission later filed an instant application against the PHC order and once again a single-judge bench of the court on Tuesday, January 3, set aside the court’s earlier order. In a six-page order authored by Justice Muhammad Ijaz Khan, the court noted that the PHC’s earlier order was an ad-interim, ex-parte order passed without providing any opportunity of hearing to the ECP.

It stated that the interim order of December 26 “prima facie amounted to granting final relief for all legal, factual and practical purposes”. “While passing the said order, an aspect of its effectiveness beyond the territorial jurisdiction of this court [which is limited to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province] was not taken into consideration,” it said.

In its petition, the PTI contended that the PHC single-member bench on January 3 misapplied the law, resulting in miscarriage of justice. It said the provincial high court had earlier granted interim relief to the party after hearing the ECP’s additional director general (ADG) law “who had argued at length” and so it was not correct that the December 26 order was passed without hearing the ECP.

The petition argued that ex-parte injunctions are also granted where irreparable or serious mischief will ensue to a petitioner, especially when refusal of the ex-parte injunction would involve greater injustice. The party stated that the interim relief granted to the PTI was not a final order and was valid until January 9 when a division bench of the PHC will take up the party’s main petition.

Read ECP gives PTI 20-day ultimatum to hold intra-party polls

The PTI declared that the January 3 order is misconceived as there is no question of territorial effectiveness of the court. “With that impugned order [of December 26], it was a matter between the ECP and the PTI and once that order is set aside it is a settled law that order of a high court [will] be implemented.”

It said the jurisdiction of the high court extends to examining the validity of the orders of the ECP as the ECP operates within the jurisdiction of the PHC and order is effective for the entire K-P province. “If the territorial effectiveness of an order of a high court is to be seen as observed by a learned single judge then in every case…all the five high courts [will have] to pass the same order for it to be implemented all over Pakistan,” the petition said.