The Supreme Court of Pakistan todat commenced hearing on the case concerning the allocation of reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), Dunya News reported.

A full court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, is conducting the proceedings. Except for the ailing Justice Musarrat Hilali, all other apex court judges are part of the bench.

The Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PMLN), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Jamiat UlemaeIslam Fazl (JUIF) opposed the Sunni Ittehad Council’s (SIC) petition against the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict that denied it reserved seats for women and minorities.

Earlier in May, the apex court had suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to allocate SIC’s reserved seats to other parties.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah had, during the proceedings, remarked that the mandate given by the people should be properly represented in parliament.

The court had sent the matter of reserved seats to the Judges Committee to decide whether the case would be heard by the same bench or a larger bench would be constituted.

BACKGROUND

On March 4, the Election Commission of Pakistan had accepted applications of the opposition parties and decided that the seats in the National and provincial assemblies would not remain vacant and would be allocated by a proportional representation process on the basis of seats won by political parties.

The development resulted in PTIbacked SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats 23 National Assembly seats (20 women and 3 minorities), 25 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seats (21 women and 4 minorities), two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and 3 minority).

The Peshawar High Court had also rejected the petitions filed by the Sunni Ittehad Council for the reserved seats of women and minorities. The party had challenged the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) verdict of not allocating the reserved women and minority seats to the SIC.