ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court has assembled a full bench to deliberate on the case regarding the allocation of reserved seats for the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC).
The proceedings will be conducted by a 13-judge panel led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa on June 3.
All Supreme Court judges, except the unwell Justice Musarrat Hilali, will participate in the hearing.
In May, the Supreme Court had temporarily halted the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to distribute SIC’s reserved seats to other parties.
During the proceedings, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah emphasized the importance of accurately reflecting the public’s mandate in parliament.
The issue of reserved seats was referred to the Judges Committee, which decided whether it should be heard by the same bench or a larger one.
On March 4, the Election Commission of Pakistan had accepted the opposing parties’ applications, deciding that the reserved seats in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies would be filled through a proportional representation system based on the seats won by political parties.
This decision led to the PTI-backed SIC losing a total of 77 reserved seats: 23 in the National Assembly (20 for women and 3 for minorities), 25 in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly (21 for women and 4 for minorities), 2 in the Sindh Assembly (for women), and 27 in the Punjab Assembly (24 for women and 3 for minorities).
The Peshawar High Court had also dismissed SIC’s petitions regarding the reserved seats for women and minorities, challenging the ECP’s decision not to allocate these seats to SIC.
