PESHAWAR - The Peshawar High Court (PHC) here on Tuesday adjourned the Election Commission of Pakistan’s petition challenging its single bench ruling on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s electoral ‘bat’ symbol and intra-party elections till today.
A single-member bench comprising PHC’s Justice Ijaz Khan conducted the hearing and reserved the verdict. However, the PTI lawyers did not appear before the court and later requested to hear them before deciding the plea. The electoral body had filed a review petition at Peshawar High Court against its December 26 verdict, which had suspended the ECP’s order and restored the party’s ‘bat’ symbol till a final decision in the case.
ECP, in its order, had declared PTI’s intra-party polls “illegal” and stripped it of using the ‘bat’ symbol. Following its order, PTI had approached the PHC seeking to restore its party symbol ahead of the general elections scheduled to be held on February 8, 2024. In its petition, the ECP requested the court to review the PTI’s intra-party elections and its decision related to the election symbol.
The ECP’s lawyer argued that the body had filed a review plea against the high court’s order and added that the ECP also issued a notice to the PTI in this regard.
He claimed that PTI did not conduct the intra-party elections properly and that questions were raised on ECP’s powers. The ECP lawyer said that the single bench suspended ECP’s order and issued a stay order without hearing the electoral body’s arguments. The stay order granted by PHC was not an interim relief but is tantamount to the final verdict on the matter. The court adjourned the hearing till today.