SIC seeks time to submit reply in seats case
A constitutional bench (CB) of the Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned hearing of the intra-court appeals filed against an earlier SC order with regard to allocation of reserved seats to the PTI on request of the counsel for the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).
When an 11-member CB led by Justice Aminuddin Khan resumed hearing the case, SIC's lawyer Faisal Siddiqi sought more time from the court to submit a reply to its notice.
Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar asked Siddiqi if he was to submit the response by today (Wednesday). The lawyer requested the bench to allow him two days and to adjourn the hearing till Monday.
"We also have objections to the CB [hearing this case] and intend to file a petition on that as well," he said. Justice Aminuddin Khan asked the counsel why he was thinking about objecting to the bench at the third hearing.
Justice Musarrat Hilali also asked as to why the SIC did not file a miscellaneous application earlier. "You knew the case was ongoing, didn't you?" she said.
The lawyer said notices were issued in the first hearing, during the second hearing a brief "war" sparked between Pakistan and India while "today is the third hearing". "We never received a formal notice; we found out about the court proceedings through television," he added.
Justice Aminuddin Khan remarked that he should not have appeared before the bench, if he had not received a notice. The lawyer responded that he could not ignore the court proceedings "besides, this is not a death penalty case."
Justice Aminuddin Khan asked Faisal Siddiqi not to make political statements while standing in court. "This is an eleven-member constitutional bench. Slots have to be carved out to fix such cases, and judges have other cases to hear as well," he said.
Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail remarked that everyone should be given a fair opportunity to be heard. "If time is given to file a miscellaneous application, it won't make much of a difference," he said. The hearing was adjourned until May 19.
On January 13, 2024, a three-member SC bench upheld the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) December 22, 2023 order declaring the PTI's intra-party polls null and void.
As a consequence of the SC verdict and its misinterpretation by the ECP, the PTI candidates had to contest the February 8, 2024 general elections as independents.
Eighty such independent candidates reached the National Assembly and later joined the SIC in an apparent bid to claim reserved seats for women and minorities. The ECP, however, refused to allocate the seats to the party, a decision that the SIC challenged in the Supreme Court.
On July 12, 2024, a full bench of the apex court through a majority of 8 to 5 resurrected the PTI as a parliamentary party, noting that 39 of the lawmakers who had submitted certificates of their affiliation with the PTI along with their nomination papers were already PTI lawmakers.
The SC ruled that the remaining 41 lawmakers who had not submitted the affiliation certificates at the time of nomination papers' submission could do that now within a period of 15 days.
The ruling coalition while filing a review petition against the SC ruling amended the Election Act, 2017, barring independent members who joined a political party after announcement of official elections results from switching affiliations.