Pak court hears Imran Khan’s party’s plea challenging ECP decision on intra-party polls

Peshawar [Pakistan]: The Peshawar High Court began hearing the petition of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) challenging the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) order declaring the intra-party polls illegal and revoking its electoral ‘bat’ symbol, Geo News reported on Tuesday.

Justice Kamran Hayat Miankel has started hearing the PTI petition challenging the ECP order.

The party founded by former Prime Minister Imran Khan filed the petition after a five-member ECP bench — headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja — declared PTI’s intra-party elections unlawful and stripped the party of its symbol.

The party named the ECP and those who challenged the elections as respondents, requesting the court for an urgent hearing of the matter, after which the court took up the plea on Tuesday, Geo News reported.

“The election commission has not been authorised to give its decision on the mechanism of conducting the party elections,” the petition read.

According to the plea, those who challenged the intra-party elections are not party members.
The ECP has declared PTI’s intra-party elections void and has also withdrawn its election symbol of ‘bat’.
The Peshawar HC began hearing PTI’s petition on Tuesday.

The petition stated that the ECP did not have the authority to decide the procedure for intra-party elections. The complainant who challenged the intra-party polls was not a party member, it added.
“The ECP withdrew the electoral symbol ‘bat’,” it read, asking the court to form a bench comprising senior judges and hear the plea on Tuesday.

The PTI has urged the court to hold and declare that the impugned order is without jurisdiction, without lawful authority and illegal, and as a consequence thereof, set it aside forthwith, Geo News reported.
It has also urged to constitute a bench comprising senior judges with the request to fix the hearing of the case today. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and those who challenged the intra-party election of the PTI have been made respondents in the petition, ARY News reported.

Notably, PTI lost its electoral symbol ‘bat’ after ECP announced the verdict on its intra-party elections on December 22.

The electoral body had earlier reserved its verdict on pleas challenging the party’s intra-party elections after hearing arguments.

Announcing the verdict, a five-member bench of the ECP, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, declared the PTI’s intra-party elections null and void.

Following the ECP verdict, the newly elected PTI chairman, Gohar Ali Khan, no longer remains the party’s head, ARY News reported.

Prominent among those who filed applications against the PTI intra-party polls were Akbar S. Babar, Raja Tahir Nawaz, and Naureen Farooq.