PTI petitions SC to recall its election symbol verdict

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Tuesday requested the Supreme Court to recall its Jan 13 judgment on its election symbol.

PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan filed the review petition through Hamid Khan, Advocate, under Article 188 of the Constitution.

He further prayed the court to declare that the ECP order was without jurisdiction, lawful authority, illegal and liable to be set aside and the PHC judgment might be upheld.

Gohar submitted that it was an established law that an intra-party election dispute was a civil dispute among the members which could be decided only through a proper trial in a court of law. Since the ECP was not a court of law, it could not (and in fact did not) conduct a trial or decide this dispute.

He contended that it was also the mandate of Article 10A, which provided that any civil dispute was to be decided by a court through a fair trial.

“The judgment under review violates the fundamental right of a fair trial,” the PTI submitted adding that Article 25 of the Constitution prohibited discrimination, yet the ECP’s decision in PTI’s case contrasted with its leniency towards another political party i.e. ANP.

“Despite ANP not holding intra-party elections, the ECP granted it the symbol and imposed only a fine,” the PTI submitted saying out of 175 political parties and throughout Pakistan’s history, the ECP never examined intra-party elections on the grounds of any irregularity nor refused a symbol on that basis.

It submitted that the judgment under review hence failed to address this obvious discrimination on record.