Reserved seats case: SC's make -or- break verdict on SIC plea put off till tomorrow

 The supreme court's (SC) highly anticipated verdict in  the matter  related to reserved seats for women and non - Muslims has been put off till tomorrow (Firday).


A 13-member full court will announce the verdict at 12pm.An earlier cause  list had said that a three -member bench would announce the verdict at 9am.

the  sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) held  a large protest outside the apex court today as the verdict was awaited 

The court had reserved its verdict on tuesday after closing the hearing on a set of appeals  moved by the SIC.


  Saga of reserved seats

The SIC had earlier been joined by PTI -backed independent candidates after they won the february 8 elections as their  party  had been deprived of its electoral symbol 'bat'.

in  a 4-1 verdict in march the Election commission of pakistan (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''.

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 jamiatulema-I- islam Fazl (JUI-F was given four Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.

Later the same month .while ruling on an SIC plea , 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 SC - moved by party chief sahibzada Hamid Raza - seeking to set aside the PHC judgment .  

the apex court on may 6 had suspended  the March 14 PHC judgment as well as the march 1 ECP decision to deprive  the SIC of seats reserved for women  and  minorities 

the SC  had Also ordered placing  the present petitions before the three- judge  committee that determines the constitution of  the bench for the reconstitution of a large bench when  Attorney General for pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan highlighted that under section 4 of the supreme court  (practice and procedure ) Act 2023 ,  the present case should  be heard by a large bench since the issue concerns the interpretation of constitutional provisions .

The ECP subsequently suspended victory notifications of as many as 77 members of the national and provincial assemblies elected on those seats. 

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