ISLAMABAD The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won a significant legal battle on Friday when the Supreme Court decided that the party is entitled to reserved seats.
The ruling has not only made it possible for the PTI, which was disqualified from the polls on February 8 due to the ECP’s December 2023 ruling, to rejoin parliament, but it has also put more pressure on the coalition partnership by altering the makeup of the National Assembly.
The whole bench of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, issued the 8–5 majority decision that overturned the PHC’s ruling upholding the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to deny the SIC the reserved seats.
Justice Mandokhail’s brief order was approved by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Akhtar. Justices Shahid Waheed, Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Muneeb Akhtar, Athar Minallah, Ayesha Malik, Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi, and Irfan Saadat Khan all backed it.
Due to the PTI candidates’ refusal to run on a single symbol, the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) was forced to work with them in order to secure the party’s reserved seats, but the ECP decided against them.
