The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court, challenging the latter's verdict in the reserved seats case.
This would make the PPP the second major political party in Parliament to challenge the verdict issued by a majority of the judges of the top court's full bench.
Filed by Advocate Farooq H. Naek on behalf of the PPP, the party has requested the top court to suspend the operation of its verdict until the conclusion of its review petition.
PPP's review petition relies mostly on the note from Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail. Justice Mandokhail was among the five judges whose views were in the minority.
The review petition argues that the findings of the majority judgment are beyond the pleadings of the parties in the main case.
"The issue of granting the reserved seats to the PTI was not even in the pleadings of SIC, hence the same cannot be granted by this Honourable Court," it maintained.
It further added that it was, in fact, the case of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) that the reserved seats could only go to the SIC and no one else. The entire contest was about whether SIC was entitled to the reserved seats.
"Hence, with respect, the order under review has given findings which were beyond the scope of the lis at hand and, therefore, cannot be sustained."
The review petition said that SIC and PTI are two separate political parties and entities. It further reiterated that PTI neither filed any case before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the Peshawar High Court, or the Supreme Court, and hence, it is not entitled to any relief.
It further said that the judgment has not taken into account that 80 MNAs had filed their nomination papers as independent candidates and then, as independent candidates, had opted to join the SIC.
"None has even come forward to state otherwise, therefore, the assumption in the order under review that the said MNAs are PTI candidates is, with respect, liable to be reviewed."
Naek pointed towards further contradictions in the order.
"Even according to the order under review, there are 41 returned candidates who have not even shown an affiliation with the PTI even in one of the columns of the list submitted by the ECP, the said candidates have been given a 15-day period to join any political party."
Naek submitted that the procedure listed in the court's order was novel and starkly contradicted the Constitution, the Election Act and settled jurisprudence.
"It is submitted that even the short orders by Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail have also held that any candidate who has elected to remain independent or has withdrawn his candidature as PTI candidate cannot be termed as a PTI candidate," the petition read.
"All the returned candidates have already joined SIC, and hence there is no question of giving them an option of joining PTI, that too after many months of the election."
PPP's review petition further argued that it is also against Rule 92 (6) of the Election Rules, 2017, which states that once an independent candidate has joined a political party, there is no option to recall or cancel.
"Constitution in terms of Article 51 (6) (d) and (e) only gives a period of three days to the returned candidates to decide which political party to join," the party argued in their petition.
"In the instant case, the order under review has given 15 days that too from the date of the order under review in clear contradiction to the Constitution."
Naek submitted that no procedure or process can be adopted that is not provided in the Constitution; hence, the top court should recall the order under review.
"It is now well-settled by this Honourable Court that where the law prescribes a thing to be done in a particular manner following a particular procedure, it shall be done in the same manner following the provisions of the law without deviating from the prescribed procedure."
"In view of this principle alone, the order under review may be recalled."
It is pertinent to mention here that the PPP is the second party after the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to file a review petition against the verdict issued by a full bench of the top court. In an eight-five majority verdict, the top court had ruled that the PTI was a parliamentary party and that the ECP had incorrectly interpreted the Supreme Court's January 13 order to withdraw the party's electoral symbol. It further found that of the 80 MNAs of the SIC, 39 had filed nomination papers as members of PTI but were deemed independent candidates after the party's electoral symbol was withdrawn. The remaining 41 members had filed their papers as independent candidates. However, the top court has determined that those candidates who filed their nomination papers on a PTI ticket but whose ticket was invalidated can decide to join the PTi in the Parliament within 15 days. However, the court almost unanimously noted that the SIC was not entitled to reserved seats.
However, like the PML-N petition, which was rejected because it was filed when the complete verdict had not been issued and the full court was not available, the PPP petition is also unlikely to be fixed for hearing anytime soon.