ISLAMABAD: The Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) decision to suspend the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) order on the appointment of a returning officer (RO) for a provincial assembly constituency was challenged in the Supreme Court.
Irfanullah was designated RO for the PK-91 Kohat II seat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The News said on Friday that attorney Afnan Karim Kundi appealed the PHC’s December 27 decision on behalf of the electoral body under Article 185(3) of the Constitution.
The Election Commission replaced the returning officer for the KP constituency after the complainants submitted the December 25 notification to the PHC. The court then suspended the aforementioned notification while notifying the ECP.
No interim relief could be granted by suspending the ECP notification dated December 25, 2023, substituting the RO, as the ECP questioned in its appeal whether the impugned order of the high court amounted to interfering with the constitutional and statutory public duties of the ECP concerning the appointment of ROs under Article 218(3), read with Section 51 of the Elections Act 2017.
The ECP questioned whether or not Section 236 of the Elections Act, 2017 precluded courts from exercising their jurisdiction. They further questioned if the high court’s contested judgment could be overturned because it effectively halted the electoral process.
The ECP questioned whether the ECP notification could be suspended by the high court.The ECP claimed that candidates for an election had no stake in having a certain returning officer review their nomination papers, giving them standing to request writ jurisdiction from the high court in this regard.
In a writ petition filed in mere conjunction, the electoral organization argued that the high court should not have upheld the contested order, omitting to mention any specific harm that the petitioners may have suffered as a result of the earlier RO’s replacement.
In the petition, in the greatest interest of justice, the ECP asked the Supreme Court for permission to appeal the contested high court ruling from December 27, 2023.
Meanwhile, the court stayed the challenged ECP order from December 25, 2023, which had the returning officer replaced for the specified seat by the electoral body.
