Daily Times

Embattled Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday filed a miscellaneous application in the Supreme Court, seeking an early hearing of its petition challenging the January 3 order of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) which stripped the party of its iconic election symbol of a “bat”.

On January 3, PHC revoked the stay order granted by its single-member bench, restoring the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to declare PTI intra-party polls null and void and stripping it of its election symbol. The PTI, however, challenged the verdict in the top court. In its miscellaneous plea, the PTI urged to top court to fix its petition for hearing on Monday “in the interest of justice”. In support of his plea, PTI’s Barrister Gohar Ali Khan stated: “This is an election matter and involves election symbol of a political party.”

“If interim relief is not taken up and heard, the applicant would be out of the process and all its candidates would contest under separate symbols and after all they may not be subject to floor crossing law which would lead to corruption. Moreover, the applicant will have no share out of the 227 reserved seats.” The electoral symbol is crucial to any political party as voters are aware of which candidate to vote for on the polling day; however, if PTI does not have a unified symbol, it might lose votes due to confusion among the people.

If the top court does not restore the PTI’s electoral symbol, it will have to play the election innings without the bat, with its leaders calling it a “major setback” to the party as it has been contested on the sign in several polls. It is pertinent to mention here that the PHC, in its six-page order noted that its earlier verdict had “prima facie created hindrance in the smooth process of the election which Is to be conducted by the ECP”.

“…the interim order of this court passed in favour of the PTI is hereby recalled and consequently the Election Commission of Pakistan is directed to proceed with the election process as per its constitutional mandate.”

The electoral body had filed a review petition at the high court against the PHC’s December 26 decision, which had suspended the ECP’s order and restored the party’s ‘bat’ symbol till a final decision on the matter. The ECP, in its order on December 22, had declared PTI’s intra-party polls “illegal” and stripped it of using the ‘bat’ symbol. The party’s candidates would now, given the PHC’s January 3 order, have to contest elections “independently”, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, chief of the think tank Pildat, told the media. Meanwhile, Imran Khan on Saturday filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the rejection of the request to withdraw the case from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in the Toshakhana reference against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision.

In the petition submitted to the Supreme Court, the PTI’s founder highlighted that a similar petition was already filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) concerning the Commission’s actions to remove him from assembly membership and party chairmanship, while the case was simultaneously being heard in IHC. The petition emphasizes that despite the request made to the IHC to withdraw the case, the request was declined. It asserts that no court should prevent the return of the case.