SIC reserved seats case verdict expected today; case recap

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will announce its decision on the appeal regarding the SIC’s reserved seats at 12 PM today. The full court bench reserved the verdict after concluding the hearing on Tuesday.

Following the decision, two consultation meetings of the full court judges took place over two days. The SIC applied to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on February 21 for the reserved seats. On February 28, the ECP reserved its decision on the case and on March 4, it delivered the verdict on the application by a ratio of 1-4.

SC verdict on SIC reserved seats tomorrow

On March 6, the SIC approached the Peshawar High Court (PHC), which dismissed the petitions on March 14. A five-member bench of the PHC rejected the petition. On April 2, the SIC applied to the Supreme Court. On May 6, a three-member bench suspended the decisions of the Peshawar High Court and the Election Commission.

The three-member bench referred the matter to the Judges Committee for the constitution of a larger bench. On May 31, a 13-member full court was constituted. The full court held its first hearing on June 3 and reserved the verdict on July 9 after nine hearings.

The Election Commission had suspended 77 controversial reserved seats after a court order. These included 22 national and 55 provincial assembly seats. The Election Commission issued the suspension notification on May 13.

The suspended national seats included 11 women’s seats from Punjab, eight from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and three reserved minority seats. The National Assembly saw PML-N receive 14, PPP 5, and JUI-F, three additional seats.

Will SIC get the reserved seats or not; SC’s verdict expected today

In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, 21 women and 4 minority reserved seats were suspended, with JUI-F getting 10, PML-N seven, PPP seven, and ANP getting one of the additional seats. In the Punjab Assembly, 24 reserved seats for women and three for minorities were suspended. PML-Q received 23, People’s Party two, and both PML-Q and Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party got one additional seat each.

In Sindh Assembly, two reserved seats for women and one for minorities were suspended, with PPP getting two and MQM one reserved seat.