ISLAMABAD   -  The Supreme Court of Pakistan will announce its verdict in appeal of Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) regarding the reserved seats on Friday (today).

The Registrar Office of the top court Thursday issued the cause the list, according to which the decision would be pronounced Friday at 12:00pm. An earlier cause list had said that a three-member bench would announce the verdict at 9:00am. The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) held a large protest outside the apex court on Thursday as the verdict was awaited.

The court had reserved its verdict on Tuesday after closing the hearing on a set of appe¬als moved by the SIC. A full court bench, presided by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, reserved the verdict into the case on Tuesday after the respondents’ lawyers concluded their arguments.

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) had upheld the verdict of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for not awarding reserved seats to SIC. The decision was challenged before the apex court. The Full Court on Wednesday and Thursday held meeting and deliberated upon the decision.

Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan, the counsels of Election Commissions of Pakistan (ECP) Sikandar Bashir Mohmand, and Makhdoom Ali Khan, who represented affected candidates, elected on reserved seats, argued that the SIC is no longer entitled to the reserved seats as it has neither contested General Elections February 2024 nor won any seats.

The SIC had been joined by PTI-backed independent candidates after they won the February 8 elections as their party was deprived of its electoral symbol ‘bat’ because of Supreme Court judgment on PTI intra party elections.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in a 4-1 verdict in March had ruled that the SIC was not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats “due to having non-curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats”.

The commission had also decided to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties, with the PML-N and the PPP becoming major beneficiaries with 16 and five additional seats, while the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) was given four. Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.

The same month, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) had dismissed an SIC plea challenging the ECP decision and denied it reserved seats. In April, the SIC filed a petition before the apex court — moved by party chief Sahibzada Hamid Raza — seeking to set aside the PHC judgment.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, and comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah on May 6 after hearing arguments on the petitions of Sunni Ittehad Council, Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly and KP government had suspended the PHC verdict.