ISLAMABAD: The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the Peshawar High Court (PHC) order that deprived the party of seats reserved for women and minorities.

Meanwhile, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly speaker has also approached the PHC against its division bench’s directive for him to administer oath to MPAs notified on reserved seats.

Moved by SIC Chairman Sahibzada Mohammad Hamid Raza through senior counsel Faisal Siddiqui, the petition before the Supreme Court seeks the setting aside of the PHC judgement of March 14.

The SIC was earlier joined by PTI-backed independent candidates after they won the Feb 8 elections, since Imran Khan’s party had been deprived of its electoral symbol ‘bat’.

Earlier, in a four-one verdict, the ECP 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 which is a requirement of the law.

The SIC apprised the SC that the PHC verdict was based on a fundamental misconception and misinterpretation of Articles 51 and 106. The interpretation of both articles in letter and spirit suggests the concept of a proportionate representation system based on a “total number of general seats secured by each political party from the province concerned in the National Assembly” or “total number of general seats secured by each political party in a provincial assembly”, it argued.

“In other words, the fact whether the political party, which now has general seats in the assemblies, had fought the election or not, is not a constitutional requirement for the allocation of reserved seats under proportional representation system,” the petition emphasised.

Besides, it added, the high court’s judgement was based on a fundamental misconception and misinterpretation of the Elections Act 2017.

It argued that neither SIC nor PTI was legally required to submit its list of candidates for reserved seats before the election, as neither SIC nor PTI contested the general election of 2024 under the election symbol rather its electoral candidates contested the said general election as independent candidates. “In other words, the requirement to submit lists for reserved seats prior to the general election only applies to the political parties which contest such election, and not to those which become parliamentary parties/political parties in the national and provincial assemblies as a result of the joining of independent candidates declared successful in elections,” it argued.