PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued notice to Election Commission of Pakistan for responding to a petition of Pakistan Muslim League-N challenging allotment of a reserved seat for non-Muslims to Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Syed Arshad Ali issued the order after preliminary hearing of the petition requesting for declaring as illegal the March 26 notification of ECP of declaring Gurpal Singh of JUI-F as returned candidate on one of the four seats reserved for non-Muslims.

Barrister Saqib Raza appeared for the petitioner whereas Barrister Kamran Murtaza represented JUI-F.

Barrister Saqib stated that there were four seats reserved for non-Muslims in KP Assembly which had to be filled under the constitution through proportional representation system of political parties’ lists of candidates on basis of total number of general seats won by each of the political party.

He stated that after the independent returned candidates joined political parties, both PML-N and JUI-F had seven members each in KP Assembly.

He stated that initially a notification was issued by ECP on March 4 through which one seat each was allocated to PML-N, JUI-F and PPPP, whereas it was mentioned in the notification that one reserved seat would be given by drawing lots between the petitioner-party and the JUI-F.

The counsel stated that subsequently in an arbitrary manner the number of seats of the petitioner were counted as six instead of seven and the fourth reserved seat was allotted to JUI-F instead of drawing lots.

The petitioner has also requested the court for granting interim relief by stopping the KP Assembly speaker from administering oath to Gurpal Singh till final disposal of the petition.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2024