Pak court suspends election body order to deprive Imran Khan's party of its electoral symbol

Peshawar: Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's party partially won a legal battle when the Peshawar High Court on Tuesday suspended an order of the election commission to deprive the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf of its electoral symbol of a cricket 'bat'.

The Election Commission of Pakistan last week in a verdict rejected the intra-party polls of Khan's party and also stopped it from using ‘bat’ as the party's electoral symbol.

The party had challenged the verdict in the Peshawar High Court where after a detailed hearing, Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel suspended the ECP ruling until the final adjudication of the petition.

'It is the victory of justice and we hope that in the final decision, the court would permanently revoke the ECP ruling,' said Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, who was elected as the party's new chairman in the intra-party polls held in Peshawar earlier this month.

During the hearing, PTI counsel Barrister Ali Zafar highlighted that when a party provides its intra-party poll details to the ECP, the commission typically issues a certificate and posts it on its website.

However, Zafar argued that, as of now, the certificate has not yet been uploaded to the ECP website.

The PTI earlier on Tuesday challenged the ECP order and urged the court to fix the matter for hearing at the earliest.

The party insisted that the ECP’s proceedings that questioned the PTI’s intra-party polls were “coram non-judice (without jurisdiction) and without lawful authority”.

It urged the court to direct the ECP to publish the results of the PTI’s intra-party polls on its website and restore the symbol of the party.

Imran Khan is currently incarcerated in corruption cases, including in the Toshakhana case. He was granted bail in the cypher case after the Supreme Court's intervention last week.

The ECP had issued a verdict following a first-of-its-kind microscopic examination of the inner workings of a political party and declared the party ineligible to obtain an election symbol to contest the upcoming general elections.

“It is held that PTI has not complied with our directions rendered therein order dated November 23, 2023, and failed to hold an intra-party election following PTI prevailing Constitution, 2019 and Election Act, 2017, and Election Rules, 2017,” the ECP had said in its 11-page order.

The party had announced to challenge it and got partial relief, which is also a victory of the PTI when it is fighting on multiple fronts to contest in the elections and get its incarcerated leader Imran Khan out of jail.

The party had termed the decision part of the “famous London Plan” and a “disgusting and shameful attempt to stop PTI from [participating in the] election”.

It claimed that the party would still win the general elections, maintaining that it would appeal the decision at every forum.

The PTI asserted that its candidates would contest the polls with the ‘bat’ symbol, come what may.

“What will happen to the 225 reserved seats if a party is stopped from participating in elections under its designated symbol?” Gohar asked following the submission of the petition.

He emphasised the significance of the matter, stating it impacted 250 million people.

Meanwhile, the ECP in a post on social media platform X on Monday said it did not offer the ‘bat’ electoral symbol to anyone else, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf parliamentarian Chairman Pervez Khattak.

Khattak, the leader of his faction of the PTI, on Monday stirred controversy by claiming that the 'bat' symbol was “offered” to him. He did not specify by whom.