Peshawar High Court restores PTI’s election symbol ‘bat’

A Peshawar High Court divisional bench on Wednesday restored “bat” as the election symbol of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

The High Court announced the verdict reserved earlier today and issued a short order.

The short order consisted of three points, according to which the December 22 order of the Election Commission of Pakistan is unconstitutional which revoked the PTI’s ‘bat’ electoral symbol and rejected its intra-party polls. The court directed the electoral body to restore the PTI its ‘bat’ symbol and upload the party’s internal poll certificate on its website.

The decision came shortly after the party withdrew from the Supreme Court its appeal seeking the restoration of its electoral symbol. 

Today's hearing

A two-judge bench of the PHC comprising Justice Ejaz Anwar and Justice Syed Arshad Ali heard a petition of the PTI against the ECP order cancelling the party’s ‘bat’ symbol and declaring its intra-party polls unconstitutional.

At the outset of the hearing, Qazi Jawad Advocate argued that his client wanted to get information from the PTI central office which he did not get. It was found out from the media that the PTI intra-party elections were held. We requested that the elections be annulled. He said his client wanted to participate in the elections but was not given the opportunity.

Justice Ejaz Anwar asked him if he did not say that intra-party elections should be held again. “If the Election Commission declared the intra-party elections null and void, you should have demanded re-elections, if you belonged to the party, you should have objected to the withdrawal of the party symbol, but you did not,” the judge said.

Lawyer Qazi Jawad said that they were not given a chance in the elections, that's why they went to the Election Commission against them.

Justice Ejaz Anwar said that PTI's intra-party elections were held in Peshawar which were declared null and void by the Election Commission. “How come the Peshawar High Court has no authority to hear the petition,” he added.

Qazi Jawad Advocate said that the question of jurisdiction is very important, the jurisdiction of the High Court has been determined in various decisions of the courts, the PTI also went to the Lahore High Court, where their petition was dismissed.

Justice Ejaz Anwar said that the Lahore High Court has written that the case is under hearing in the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court, let the Peshawar High Court decide.

Justice Arshad Ali asked ‘once the schedule is released, then how can the election symbol be decided, can a political party contest elections without election symbol?’

The complainant's lawyer said in his arguments that PTI is talking about a level playing field, it should also give a level playing field to its workers. The party workers did not know where the elections were held, then a bubble arose and intra-party election was held.

Justice Ejaz Anwar remarked that then that bubble also burst.

The judge remarked: “Here sometimes someone becomes a ladla (favorite). You should not talk about politics, come to the legal point, you are also saying that the intra-party elections were not constitutional and it is okay to withdraw the election symbol from the party.”

On which, the lawyer said that why should he support a party which could not hold intra-party elections according to the law? Election symbols keep changing, a new symbol can be given for every election, he argued.

Later, during the case hearing, Naveed Akhtar, the lawyer of Jahangir of Charsadda, said in his arguments that his client was the district president. He said Jahangir was dismissed from the party on a statement. He said that in the intra-party election, the officials were not elected as per the constitution, which is mandatory. He said the updated list of the office bearers has to be given to the Election Commission, the electoral symbol is also given to the political party according to its credibility, party constitution and voter protection must be kept in mind.

After that the lawyer of another party, Tariq Afridi started his arguments.

He said that he would discuss the jurisdiction of the court, whether the court could hear this request or not.

The court replied that the lawyer before you also argued for an hour on the jurisdiction, he has raised the points, if there are other points than those, let us know.

Lawyer Afridi said that under Article 192 of the Constitution, the Election Commission is a federal institution, its cases could be heard in Islamabad High Court, the Peshawar High Court does not have jurisdiction over this matter.

After that the court took a break.

When the case hearing resumed after the break, Justice Ejaz Anwar remarked that if the intra-party election was against the constitution, then the party could be fined. He inquired of the commission’s lawyer if the ECP fined the party, to which the lawyer replied in negative. The lawyer said that the ECP took action under the Election Act 215.

Justice Arshad Ali remarked but there is no mention of intra-party election in this section.

The judge asked the counsel that intra-party elections are held under the Election Act 208, how the party symbol was withdrawn under the subsection of Section 215 of the Election Act 209?

Justice Arshad Ali said that according to Section 209, results should be submitted within 7 days and the PTI submitted results within a week.

The ECP counsel argued that the Election Commission must ensure that the intra-party elections are held under Section 208. He said he wants to discuss how the intra-party elections were held, to which Justice Ejaz Anwar said, "No, you cannot talk about it. We haven't heard them on that either. How the election was done will be discussed again on the evidence.”

PTI lawyer Barrister Ali Zafar while giving arguments on behalf of the lawyers of the parties regarding the questions on the jurisdiction, said that he wants to tell what the principle on the jurisdiction is. Article 199 empowers the High Court to hear the case. Our intra-party elections were held in Peshawar, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court. Our general secretary is also from this province, the PTI lawyer said.

Justice Ejaz Anwar asked who is the General Secretary, to which Barrister Ali Zafar replied that Omar Ayub Khan is the General Secretary, who belongs to the same province.

After PTI's lawyer Barrister Ali Zafar completed his arguments, the court asked the Election Commission's lawyer, "Do you want to say something?"

ECP lawyer Sikandar Bashir came to the rostrum and said that the PTI held intra-party election but the ECP was not allowed to scrutinize whether the election was held according to their party constitution or not.

The election commission lawyer said that the chairman's certificate should have said that Tehreek-e-Insaf has conducted the intra-party elections according to the constitution. Section 215 applies when the Election Commission has the power. Therefore, this petition has to be rejected, he pleaded.

Justice Ejaz Anwar remarked that if the intra-party election was against the constitution, the ECP neither issued a show-cause notice nor punished the PTI chairman. He punished him by declaring the intra-party election null and void. On which, the lawyer said that Section 208 says that the election has to be done within the timeframe.

Justice Arshad Ali asked the ECP counsel that intra-party elections are held under the Election Act 208, how the party symbol was withdrawn under the subsection of Section 215 of the Election Act 209?

The court asked the lawyer that if a new party is registered, what is the procedure for it.

The ECP lawyer said that after the election schedule is released, then symbols are allotted, symbols will be allotted tomorrow and the day after, after the election, the political party has nothing to do with poll signs, he added.

Later, after the arguments were completed, the two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court reserved the decision.

The hearing was held in the court for 9 hours, the court heard the arguments of the lawyers of PTI, the election commission and the objecting party workers.