reserved seats saga
PESHAWAR
As the reserved seats saga continues to unfold, the Peshawar High Court declared null and void the 2024 notifications issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) about reserved seats for women and minorities in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly,.
The bench, comprising Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal, issued a brief written order after hearing the case. The court also declared that the ECP’s deadline of February 22, 2024 for independent candidates to join a political party was unconstitutional.
The court directed the ECP to hear all relevant political parties again and reallocate the seats within 10 days. It also ordered that, until the new decision is made, the two women MPAs from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) should not be de-notified.
The development comes as the electoral body, last week, reinstated 21 reserved seats for women in KP Assembly following the Supreme Court’s verdict, which declared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ineligible for reserved seats.
Out of these 21 seats, eight were allocated to JUI-F, six to PML-N, and five to PPP. One seat each was also allotted to the PTI Parliamentarians (PTI-P) and the Awami National Party (ANP). — DNA
