Barrister Ali Zafar’s personal counsel appeared before Peshawar High Court (PHC) in Peshawar Pakistan on Tuesday and said that the party elections were held following the provisions of the Constitution. The statement was made during the proceedings of a PTI writ petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) ruling to invalidate the intra-party election and cancel party’s symbol ‘bat’
Few weeks ago, PTI’s famous bat logo was also taken away by ECP because the intra-party elections were not conducted as per rules. The decision was challenged by PTI causing it to obtain a stay against the ECP order which hereby restored the bat symbol temporarily until an agreeable decision is made on the petition.
During the hearing, Barrister Zafar stated that PTI followed the ECP’s ruling and duly filed Form 65. He pointed out that objections were raised, but the objectors were not party members. The court had issued a notice to the ECP, instructing it to put up PTI’s certificates of intra-party elections on its website.
The judges were not at all happy with the PTI counsels arriving late due to this fog and they noticed that there were no other parties in the case. Barrister Gohar Khan explained that no other parties were involved.
8 th February, the court asked PTI why it wanted to keep the bat symbol while preparing for elections. Barrister Zafar elaborated that a party’s identity is an election symbol, and without it, voters can be misled. He highlighted that PTI had the bat symbol since the two previous elections.
According to Barrister Zafar, the ECP has no power to stop intra-party elections and interfere in internal appointments made by parties. He stated that the ECP is not a court and has no jurisdiction over internal party issues.
The hearing was adjourned by the court for 30 minutes so that the arguments of Barrister Zafar and ECP lawyer can be presented. When the ECP lawyer said that PTI had been given chances to comply with laws and warned of punishment in case symbol cancellation,
Barrister Gohar Ali Khan of PTI, speaking after the hearing, hoped that the court would rule in his favour and added “PTI has also petitioned against ECP’s orders in the Supreme Court. The court postponed the hearing to 9 am on that following day.
