ISLAMABAD: A full-court bench of Pakistan’s top court on Monday adjourned till Tuesday hearing of a plea filed by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) party, backed by former prime minister Imran Khan, that challenged the order of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) denying it reserved seats for women and minorities in parliament.
The 13-member, full-court bench was headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa and included Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Ayesha A. Malik, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan. 
Pakistan’s top court on May 6 suspended the PHC’s earlier decision in which it said the SIC, which was joined by Khan-backed candidates who won the Feb. 8 national election, was not eligible for reserved seats in parliament. Following the decision, Pakistan’s Attorney-General Mansoor Usman Awan had highlighted that under Section 4 of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023, the present case should be heard by a larger bench of the Supreme Court since the issue concerns interpretation of constitutional provisions. 
On Monday, Salman Akram Raja appeared as the SIC counsel, while Faisal Siddiqui was present on behalf of the party’s woman candidates who were denied the reserved seats. Sikandar Bashir Momand represented the Election Commission of Pakistan. At the beginning of the hearing, SIC attorneys approached the podium and Siddiqui read the court’s order from May 6 aloud.
“As per a letter issued by the ECP dated 25-4-2024, it submits that it has been acknowledged that the SIC is a parliamentary party having 82 general seats in the National Assembly,” he said. “Therefore, the SIC is entitled to reserved seats as per the proportional representation system in terms of Article 51 (6d and e) and 106 (2c) of the constitution”.
During the hearing, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah remarked that the Election Commission of Pakistan had accepted the inclusion of independent candidates, backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, into the SIC but later did not allocate reserved seats to them.
“The Election Commissioner did not invalidate the joining of the SIC by the independent candidates, ECP first accepts the inclusion as valid and later does not even allot reserved seats,” Justice Shah noted in his remarks.
“The member of the assembly can say that as he was not prevented from joining before, then now give him the right of reserved seats.” 
Reiterating the arguments from the SIC petition, Siddiqui said that allocating reserved seats to other political parties breached Articles 51(vi)(d) and (e) of the Constitution.
At this, CJP Isa inquired about the opposing parties involved in the case and the beneficiaries, who were included as parties.
“A total of 77 reserved seats are contested, where 22 seats of National Assembly and 55 seats of provincial assemblies are in dispute,” Siddiqui replied.
Justice Minallah questioned whether a political party loses all its rights after its election symbol is taken away. 
“People can never be separated from the electoral process and people cannot be disenfranchised on the basis of technicalities,” the judge said.
After Siddiqui partially presented his arguments, the court adjourned the hearing till 11 am on Tuesday.
The issue reached the Supreme Court after the PHC rejected the SIC’s plea for the allocation of reserved seats, and SIC chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Assembly speaker in April filed appeals in the Supreme Court against the PHC judgment, requesting the allocation of 67 woman and 11 minority seats in the assemblies and the reversal of the PHC’s decision.
Under Pakistan’s election rules, political parties are allotted reserved seats in proportion to the number of parliamentary seats they win in an election. This completes the National Assembly’s total strength of 336 seats.
Following the February 8 national election, the ECP had decided not to allocate reserved seats for women and minorities to the SIC because it had not submitted its list of candidates for those seats. The decision was upheld by the PHC. However, when the decision was challenged in the Supreme Court, the PHC order was suspended.
Subsequent to the Supreme Court’s order, the ECP had suspended notifications of lawmakers on 77 reserved seats that were denied to the SIC. The SIC, led by Hamid Raza, gained prominence after PTI-backed independent candidates, who formed the largest group of candidates elected in the February 8 election, joined it following the PTI’s loss of its electoral symbol.
However, PTI’s attempt to claim the reserved seats was thwarted in March when the election commission ruled that the SIC was not entitled to the quota for reserved seats due to “incurable legal defects” and a failure to submit the required party list for reserved seats. The commission subsequently redistributed the reserved seats among other parties.