Supreme Court to hear PTI plea for restoring election symbol ‘bat’ tomorrow

The Supreme Court will hear a petition tomorrow (Friday) from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to restore the PTI as a party for February 8 General Elections and its electoral symbol ‘bat’.

On 22 December, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) declared PTI ineligible to obtain iconic ‘bat’ as Election Symbol and ruled intra-party polls unconstitutional.

On 26 Decemeber, Peshawar High Court put the election commission’s decision on hold until the case is resolved.

On 3rd January, Peshawar High Court (PHC) reinstated the Election Commission of Pakistan’s December 22, order which declared PTI’s intra-party polls “unconstitutional” and revoked the party’s iconic ‘bat’ electoral symbol.

Peshawar High Court (PHC) further pronounced that the grievance of the petitioner as agitated in the main writ petition was to be considered and finally adjudicated upon by this court on the date fixed (Jan 9).

Today, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in its petition contended that “perusal of Election Act 2017 showed that political parties are fully empowered to run their affairs and no role of interference of ECP has been envisaged in these provisions at all”.

The plea said that there were 227 reserved seats and without the interim relief order, nomination forms could not have been filed by the candidates contesting for these seats.

PTI in its petition asserted that the ECP did not have the jurisdiction to challenge the “internal appointments”of PTI officials or set aside the party’s intra-party elections and declare them void.

The petition said the ECP was not a “court of law”, reiterating that it could not question the appointments made by a political party or examine the validity of intra-party polls.

It said denying the PTI its election symbol, the election commission had made the party “dysfunctional and has violated Article 17 of the Constitution”.