Islamabad January 14 2023: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has accepted the appeal of the Election Commission against the allotment of election symbol of bat to Tehreek-e-Insaf and annulled the decision of the Peshawar High Court.
The Supreme Court has upheld the December 22nd decision of the Election Commission in which the Election Commission had withdrawn its election symbol ‘BAT’ from Tehreek-e-Insaf for not conducting intra-party elections in accordance with the party constitution and law.
A three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa has given this unanimous decision. Other members of the bench include Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musrat Hilali.
Earlier, after the arguments of the parties were completed, the three-member bench reserved its decision and said that the decision will be pronounced tonight as according to the election schedule, today was the last date for allotment of election symbols to the candidates.
The Chief Justice, giving a brief verdict in this case, said that the Election Commission had asked Tehreek-e-Insaf to hold intra-party elections in the year 2021 and that was the time when Tehreek-e-Insaf was in power in the federation and the provinces, so it cannot be said that Tehreek-e-Insaf had Justice was discriminated against.
The short judgment further said that the Election Commission had taken action against 13 political parties in this context as these parties could not conduct inter-party elections on time. While pronouncing the decision, the Chief Justice further said that 14 members of Tehreek-e-Insaf had also submitted applications to the Election Commission expressing their concerns about the inter-party elections.
The decision further states that in the light of the instructions of the Election Commission, the intra-party elections conducted by the PTI were first said to be held in the provincial capital Peshawar and then shifted to Chamkani, a nearby area of Peshawar. was given and in that too the nomination papers were denied to the participants.
The judgment said that Pakistan came into existence on the basis of democracy and when democratic methods die out, dictatorship flourishes.
The verdict states that Pakistan Tehreek Ansaf challenged the Election Commission’s decision to withdraw election symbols first in the Lahore High Court and then in the Peshawar High Court. The decision said that how can the same case be challenged in two high courts? While the petitions filed by PTI in the Lahore High Court have not yet been withdrawn and the petition filed before the two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court also did not mention that any such case has been filed. It is also under hearing in Lahore High Court.
The Chief Justice said that the detailed decision of this case will be issued later.
The three-member bench started hearing the case at 10 am on Saturday, which continued till 7 pm with several short breaks. After that, it was informed by the court staff that the short verdict will be pronounced by 9:30, but there was some delay. Due to this delay, the Election Commission had to extend the allotted time for allotting election symbols five times.
However, at last at 11:00 PM, Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa started pronouncing the verdict and apologized to the people present in the court for the delay and informed that the verdict will be uploaded on the website of the Supreme Court soon.
