• PHC judge asks ECP to restore party’s electoral symbol, publish certificate of intra-party polls
• Chairman Gohar Ali Khan lauds court, says ECP has ‘acted like an adversary’
PESHAWAR: In another legal victory for the PTI, the Peshawar High Court on Tuesday suspended an order of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which had declared the former ruling party’s intra-party polls ‘void’ and revoked its electoral symbol last week.
The Peshawar High Court, in response to a petition by PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali and others, has suspended the ECP’s Dec 22 verdict, instructing the ECP to publish the certificate of PTI’s intra-party polls on its website and restore the party’s election symbol until Jan 9, 2024, due to the urgency of the upcoming Feb 8 elections. The PTI hailed the decision as historic and pledged to bring about a peaceful revolution through the power of the vote.
Court proceedings
A panel of senior lawyers represented PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali and others in a petition challenging the ECP’s jurisdiction to declare PTI’s intra-party polls illegal. Barrister Syed Ali Zafar argued that the ECP has no authority to declare such polls illegal and that the impugned order was hasty. The court suspended the ECP’s Dec 22 verdict until Jan 9, 2024, instructing the ECP to publish the certificate of PTI’s intra-party polls. The federal and KP governments were represented, and the case is expected to be heard by a division bench after the winter vacation.
‘Most popular party’
Following the court’s verdict, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Barrister Ali Zafar, in a media talk, lauded the PHC, stating that the court had provided relief to the “most popular political party” in the country.
Barrister Gohar termed the court’s order of immense importance, stating that they had filed priority lists of candidates for 225 reserved seats for women and non-Muslims across the country and without the election symbol the fate of those candidates was uncertain. “While I do not want to say anything against the ECP; in the instant case, it has acted like a rival party and not as a neutral judge,” he said.
Barrister Zafar said that they had a firm belief in the rule of law and for the same reason they had approached different courts to get justice.