Daily Times

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) filed a review petition on Tuesday against the Supreme Court’s January 13 order declaring its intra-party elections illegal.

The PTI prayed to the apex court to declare the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) verdict as “without jurisdiction, without lawful authority and illegal and liable to be set aside”.

Senior lawyers Hamid Khan and Ali Zafar have filed the petition in the top court making the electoral watchdog and the complainants in the high court as respondents.

The petitioner argues that “the Elections Act does not give any right, power or jurisdiction to ECP to adjudicate any dispute relating to intra-party elections or refuse to give it a common symbol on the basis of any alleged irregularity in the intra-party elections”. Therefore the party highlighted that “the Judgement under Review is also in violation of the fundamental right of fair trial (Article 10A)”.

The party argued that the Peshawar High Court’s (PHC) verdict on January 10 held that the “ECP lacks the power to decide intra-party election disputes, exemplifying that this decision can only be made after a proper trial in the court of law.” Therefore, the verdict passed by the PHC should be upheld.

The PTI feels “discriminated” by the ECP as ANP did not hold intra-party elections yet the ECP granted it the symbol and imposed only a fine.