CJP-led SC bench hear PTI’s plea on electoral symbol ‘bat’ today

ISLAMABAD: A three-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan will hear Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) plea against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to strip the party of its iconic electoral symbol ‘bat.’

Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Esa is heading the SC bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Musarrat Hilali to hear the PTI’s plea, seeking the restoration of ‘bat’ as its electoral symbol.

Earlier, Hamid Khan had requested the court to fix the hearing at the earliest.

Earlier on January 4, the PTI approached the apex court against the Peshawar High Court (PHC) verdict, which restored the ECP December 22, 2023 order, leading to the revocation of the party’s electoral symbol ’bat’.

ECP verdict

On December 2, the ECP nullified PTI’s intra-party elections, for the third time since last year, declaring the party ineligible for obtaining its traditional electoral symbol of ‘bat’.

In its verdict, the ECP said, “So keeping in view the clear mandate of Elections Act 2017 – it is held that PTI has not complied with our directions rendered therein order dated 23rd November 2023 and failed to hold the intra-party election by PTI prevailing Constitution 2019 and Elections Act 2017, and Election Rules, 2017. Therefore, the certificate dated 4th December 2023 and Form-65 filed by the alleged chairman, is hereby regretted and rejected accordingly”.

Later, PTI challenged the ECP verdict in the PHC that suspended the ECP order and restored ‘bat’ as PTI’s symbol on December 26. Subsequently, the ECP submitted a review decision before the PHC and it restored the ECP decision.

PTI’s intraparty elections

PTI’s intraparty elections, in which Barrister Gohar Khan was elected as chairman of the party, were held on December 2.

The polls had drawn a sharp criticism as estranged PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar announced that he would challenge the entire process.

He had alleged that the PTI had carried out a selection process aimed at throwing out party workers to give the reins to a few lawyers.