PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday again sought reply from Election Commission of Pakistan to the petition of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and former senator Azam Khan Swati, seeking holding of Senate polls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A bench consisting of PHC Chief Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Wiqar Ahmad directed special secretary for ECP Mohammad Arshad and their counsel to submit the reply by Jan 16, the next date of hearing.

The bench rejected their request for keeping the petition pending as ECP’s appeal regarding allocation of reserved seats for women and non-Muslims had been pending before Supreme Court of Pakistan. The bench observed that ECP couldn’t be given a free hand in the matter.

Petitioner Azam Swati has requested the court to declare illegal the two orders of ECP, one issued on March 26 and the other on April 2, 2024, through which it first hinted at postponing Senate polls in the province if oath was not administered to the opposition MPAs elected on reserved seats and subsequently ordering the election postponement in the province.

Next hearing into petition will be held on Jan 16

The respondents in the petition are ECP through its secretary and five candidates, who were later declared MPAs-elect on reserved seats and on whose applications the commission postponed the polls.

On March 28, ECP declared in response to applications of five women MPAs-elect that if the speaker of provincial assembly failed to comply with the directions of the high court to administer oaths to the lawmakers elected to reserved seats, it would be constrained to postpone Senate elections in the province until the administration of oaths to the applicants.

Subsequently on April 2, when Senate elections were held in other provinces and Islamabad, the commission announced postponing the polls in KP till administering oath to the MPAs-elect on reserved seats.

Advocate Ali Zaman appeared for the petitioner and stated that non-holding of Senate polls here was discriminatory and an injustice to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He stated that 11 Senate seats from the province had been lying vacant as ECP had not been conducting polls.

He stated that after the judgement of Supreme Court whereby it set aside the ECP’s order of assigning reserved seats to parties other than PTI, there was no excuse available with the commission to further delay holding of polls in the province.

The PHC chief justice observed in lighter vein that earlier provincial government had been delaying the matter and now ECP. When the bench inquired from the ECP official how much time they needed to file the reply, he requested that they may be given much more time as the ECP’s appeal had been pending before the apex court.

The petitioner has said that he is a contesting candidate for Senate elections in 2024 on general as well as technocrat seats. He, however, said that instead of holding polls in KP, ECP passed the impugned orders on March 26 and April 2, 2024, without hearing him on the matter.

The petitioner pointed out that Supreme Court had set the issue of reserved seats for women and non-Muslims to rest by setting aside ECP’s order of awarding seats to candidates of other parties and a PHC judgement on the matter.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2024