Daily Times

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) approached the Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday against the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) decision to restore ‘cricket bat’ as the PTI’s electoral symbol.

The apex court has allotted a number to the ECP’s appeal. In the petition, the electoral watchdog contends that the high court’s decision was in violation of the Constitution and the law.

Later, the top court fixed the ECP’s petition for a hearing on Friday. A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faiz Isa, will conduct the proceedings. Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali are also part of the bench. The PHC had a day earlier annulled the ECP’s ruling revoking the party’s electoral symbol citing irregularities in the PTI’s intra-party polls.

In the short order, the high court said that the watchdog’s order was “illegal, without any lawful authority and of no legal effect”. The court had further instructed the ECP to publish the certificate submitted by the PTI after its internal polls on the commission’s website. Moreover, it had affirmed the PTI’s entitlement to the election symbol in accordance with sections 215 and 217, along with other applicable provisions of the Election Act, 2017, and Election Rules, 2017.

Following this ruling, the ‘bat’ electoral symbol was returned to the PTI.

The PTI, after earlier submitting an application regarding the allotment of its election symbol in the SC, withdrew it on January 10. The apex court dismissed the petition on grounds that it was withdrawn.

Separately, the PTI filed a contempt plea in PHC against the ECP on Thursday.

The plea by the party comes after ECP’s delay in issuing the party certificate.

The party has made the Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, secretary election commission, and members of the ECP respondents in the petition, which comes a day after the high court returned the electoral symbol of ‘bat’ to PTI and nullified the electoral watchdog’s earlier decision.

The petition stated that “this action by the ECP is considered contempt of court, hindering PTI’s regular electoral process, as evident from the court’s explicit instructions”.