PTI reserved seats case

Sunni Ittehad Council v. Election Commission of Pakistan, informally referred to as the PTI Reserved Seats Case, was a court case which involved the high bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP), notably comprising Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, and several other high justices. In this case, lawyers from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) representing the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) challenged the Pakistani Election Commission’s decision of not giving allocated reserve seats in the National Assembly, Punjab Assembly, Sindh Assembly, and KPK assembly for women and minorities to SIC members, as the ECP gave the seats to other parties, claiming the party failed to meet the January 24 deadline for the submission of candidates. On 12 July the court nullified the Election Commissions order and PHC verdict, terming it "unconsititional" and ordering the PTI to submit a list of candidates.

Reserved Seats
In Pakistan, each provincial assembly and the National Assembly has are a certain number of reserved seats to be given to women or religious minorities from a winning party in the assembly, with reserve seats being granted on proportional representation between the elected parties in the assembly as per the Constitution and Elections Act, 2017.

For the 2024 Pakistani election, PTI candidates were forced to run as independents due to the linked Intra party elections case, but later declared that they were under the Sunni Ittehad Council, for legal purposes.

The reserved seats are key, as the incumbent Shehbaz Sharif government was formed on the basis of a 2/3 Majority, a majority that allows constitutional amendments to be made, which would be absent without the extra reserved seats denied to the SIC.

Arguments
The PTI’s argument for granting the reserve seats to PTI members was that by law, reserve seats are granted to the already elected parties in an assembly based on proportional representation. PTI-backed candidates held 84 seats under Sunni Ittehad Council in the National Assembly and therefore a certain amount of the proportional representation of the 60 seats for women and 10 minority seats should have been granted to the SIC, according to the PTI argument.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s argument was that since the PTI members under the SIC registered as Independent candidates for the 2024 elections, that they would not receive reserve seats, as they contested as independent. The argument is also that the SIC did not file candidates beforehand for reserve seat holders, as required. The clashing arguments have used the Constitution and Elections Act, 2017. A clashing argument used was that the PTI filed reserve seats candidates but the SIC did not.

Case details
On May 6, 2024, a three-judge SCP bench overturned the Peshawar High Court’s ruling that had granted the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) 77 reserved seats, but instead gave the seats to other political parties in various assemblies. The ruling coalition's two-thirds majority was instantly lost as a result of the Supreme Court bench's decision, temporarily.

The SCP has questioned whether the SIC qualifies for the allocation of the reserved seats as do other political parties such as the PML-N, PPP, JUI-F and MQM-P, which have been allocated the reserved seats.

The SIC case differs from the other parties' because, as mandated by Section 104 of the Elections Act, 2017, it did not provide a priority list of its candidates for the two categories of reserved seats (women and minorities) for each assembly before to the general election. As a result, the SIC candidates for the reserved seats also failed to turn in their nomination documents.

Justice Athar Minallah criticized the Election Commission of Pakistan for its failure in not giving reserve seats to the SIC.

On 12 July 2024 a 13-member bench of the Supreme Court announced its majority verdict; declaring the decision of the ECP and PHC "null and void," and unconstitutional. Furthering adding that the delisting of PTI's electoral symbol (bat) "cannot disqualify a political party from elections. The PTI was and is a political party," allowing the party to become eligible for minorities and womens reserved seats and ordering it to submit a list of candidates for reserved seats.