As the Supreme Court announces its reserved verdict on the contentious case concerning the allocation of reserved seats for the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), we shed light on the timeline of the litigation.
February 21: The Sunni Ittehad Council initially applied to the Election Commission of Pakistan for allocation of reserved seats.
February 27: The PML -N, PPP and MQM also requested to be parties in the case.
March 4: The election commission ruled that the SIC was not entitled to the reserved seats and allocated those seats to other parties. This decision was contested by one member of the election commission, who disagreed with the redistribution of the seats.
March 6: In response, the SIC approached the Peshawar High Court, seeking to overturn the election commission's ruling.
March 14: Their petitions were dismissed by a five-member large bench of the Peshawar High Court, which unanimously upheld the election commission's decision.
April 2: Undeterred, the Sunni Ittehad Council filed a petition in the Supreme Court.
May 6: The case was initially heard by a three-member bench headed by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah. During this hearing, the Supreme Court suspended the election commission's decision to the extent of allocating additional seats to other parties and referred the matter to a larger bench due to its constitutional significance.
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May 31: A full court was constituted to hear the case, with Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa heading the proceedings.
June 3: The full court began hearing the petitions of the Sunni Ittehad Council.
July 9: After extensive deliberations, the court reserved its judgement.
On Thursday, the larger bench, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, deliberated on the matter once again and decided to pronounce the judgement on Friday. A consultation session of the full court under the chairmanship of the CJP was held in Islamabad, which was attended by all the judges of the 13-member bench, as per the sources.
A full court consultation session was held on Wednesday also under the chairmanship of Chief Justice Isa, where all 13 judges participated. During the meeting, each judge provided their opinion based on the arguments presented by the lawyers and the records of all parties involved in the case.
Sources indicate that the judges engaged in extensive discussions on important legal questions and thoroughly examined the arguments and evidence. The opinions of the judges were meticulously gathered on each point of the case.
Security Measures
Security was significantly heightened around the Supreme Court premises. Additional police personnel were deployed along key routes leading to the court to ensure the safety and security of all participants. Access routes such as the path from Serena Chowk to the Red Zone have been blocked, and entry from Nadra Chowk to the Red Zone is being strictly controlled, requiring identification.
