ISLAMABAD, Sept 27: The Supreme Court was approached on Friday to give its authoritative pronouncement on the recent changes in the electoral college for the minorities under which no independent candidate can contest for reserved seats.

J. Salik filed a constitutional petition in the SC under the original jurisdiction of the apex court (Article 184-3), and stated that the recent amendments to the election laws had deprived the minorities of their rights whereby any citizen could contest for reserved seats as an independent candidate.

The amendments, he said, had created a bar regarding the reserved seats for minorities and they could not contest the election on the reserved seats for minorities except when they were enlisted members of a political party and their names figured in the party list.

The petitioner remarked that the constitution guaranteed equal treatment to all citizens without any discrimination, but the present election laws militated against Articles 4, 17, and 25 of the constitution.

He contended that the change in the election laws would ultimately affect the concept of solidarity with the minorities and their role in the national life.

The amendments to the laws had not taken care of the ground realities, he said, adding that a non-Muslim should first join the political party while certain political parties might not like to accept the membership of certain non-Muslims as their nominees to contest the election for the reserved seats and thus unwanted members of the non-Muslim community would be deprived of their fundamental rights to contest for the reserved seats.

The petitioner prayed to the apex court to direct the election commission to either hold the election on the reserved seats of non-Muslim as provided in Article 51, or direct suitable amendments to the election laws to provide for private candidates to contest the election for the reserved seats.