ISLAMABAD          -         The Supreme Court of Pakistan Tuesday allowed the Election Commission of Pakistan to proceed with the contempt which it had issued to Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and the party’s central leaders Asad Umar and Fawad Chaudhry. A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Umar Ata Bandial conducted hearing of the ECP petition wherein it sought consolidation and transfer of all six challenges to its contempt notice against the three PTI leaders pending before different high courts. The ECP had issued contempt notices to the PTI leaders. However, instead of defending, they challenged the notices before different high courts – Lahore High Court, LHC Rawalpindi bench, Sindh High Court and the Islamabad High Court on the grounds that Section 10 of the Elections Act, 2017 was against the Constitution. The bench asked the High Courts, where the PTI petitions against the ECP is lying, to soon decide the matter. It added that the statutory body’s jurisdiction should not be undermined. During the proceedings, Justice Ayesha Malik asked the ECP counsel to simply proceed while Justice Athar Minallah said that there is no injunctive order passed against the ECP from taking action against the three PTI leaders, but restrained the ECP from adverse action or final order. It said that the electoral watchdog should also examine the objections to the show-cause notices issued to the PTI leaders. The Election Commission had said that it issued show-cause notices to Imran, Asad and Fawad, but they did not appear. However, the PTI’s counsel told the court that the ECP’s showcause notice had not been issued by the chief election commissioner but by some other officer.