PHC orders reserved seats reallocation

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday annulled the distribution of reserved seats in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly and ordered the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to redistribute the seats after hearing the parties.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal, announced the reserved judgment on the petition of the PML-N against the distribution of reserved seats.

In its two-page judgment, the court declared null and void both the announcements of the ECP regarding the allocation of reserved seats for women and minorities. It said the ECP should reallocate these seats after hearing all candidates and political parties within 10 days.

The court delayed the oath-taking of the lawmakers on the reserved seats until the ECP decision. The court also ruled that ECP's deadline for the independent candidates to join any political party in the provincial assembly by February 22, 2024, was unconstitutional.

The K-P Assembly comprises 124 lawmakers – 99 elected on general seats, besides 21 reserved seats for women and four reserved seats for non-Muslims. The reserved seats are allocated only to the political parties in the house based on their strength.

After the general elections on February 8, 2024 the ECP allocated the reserved seats to the political parties, excluding the independents, who were PTI-backed, and formed majority in the house. However, the matter dragged for over a year in the courts, until it was settled in the Supreme Court recently.

The PHC ruling directed the ECP to redistribute these seats after hearing the PML-N, the JUI-F, the PPP, the ANP and the PTI-Parliamentarians.

Earlier, during the hearing, ECP Special Secretary Law Muhammad Arshad, ECP lawyer Mohsin Kamran, PML-N lawyer Aamir Javed and Barrister Saqib Raza, JUI lawyer Naveed Akhtar and Farooq Afridi appeared in the court.

The petitioner's lawyer argued that the ECP counted six PML-N members – five elected on general seats and one independent joining the party within three days of stipulated time – and distributed the reserved seats, accordingly, through a notification issued on February 22, 2024.

However, he continued, notifications of the election victories of some candidates were still pending by that time. He added that the notification of Malik Tariq Awan's victory was issued on February 22, who joined the PML-N on February 23 – well within the three days of timeframe.

This raised the PML-N's strength in the house to seven, the lawyer told the court. Similarly, he added, the ECP issued a separate notification for allocation of reserved seats for minorities on March 4 and again the PML-N's six seats were counted, as Awan was declared an independent.

As per the distribution, lawyer stated, one minority seat was given to the JUI, one to the PML-N and one to the PPP, while one seat was left vacant, which would have been decided through tossing of the coin. He added that the party moved the ECP and claimed that it had seven seats in the house.

Overall, lawyer Aamir Javed told the court, the ECP gave 10 reserved seats to the JUI based on its seven general seats in the assembly, while the PML-N was given eight reserved seats on the strength of seven general seats, by counting its six seats.

The petitioner's lawyer said that the party did not want postponement of the Senate elections which was due later this month. He requested that if the court wanted to send the matter to the ECP, then the election supervisor should be bound to decide the matter within three days.

When asked by Justice Ali as to how the ECP could distribute the seats when the process was not complete, the ECP special secretary said that the assembly session had to be held 21 days after the election. He added that ECP allocated the seats based on the party positions on February 22, 2024.

The JUI lawyer took the position that the party whose seats were challenged should be made a party to the case. Naveed Advocate said that JUI was not party and he was representing Gujral Singh, who was elected on a reserved seats.

After hearing the matter, the court reserved its ruling, which was announced later in the day. The court also annulled the notification regarding Gujral Singh, dated March 26, 2024.