Today, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) stopped the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from making a final decision on a case about the PTI's inner-party elections. The court will listen to the plea by Akbar S Babar, a former PTI member, tomorrow.
In the hearing, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali and other lawyers told the court that the intra-party polls were held on December 2, and Akbar S Babar, who is no longer a party member, complained to the ECP. The chairman argued that the elections followed the Election Act 2017 and the party's rules, but Babar's complaint should not be considered.
Barrister Gohar criticized ECP's past judgments on PTI matters, claiming bias. The court questioned Babar's PTI membership, which had been terminated over 10 years ago. Gohar insisted that the ECP had no authority to review intra-party polls and accused them of being biased against PTI.
Gohar informed the court that he submitted all necessary documents to ECP after the polls, but instead, the elections were challenged. He highlighted that no intra-party polls in the country had been challenged before, and the law doesn't authorize the election supervisor to handle such cases.
Barrister Gohar requested the PHC to instruct the ECP to issue the certificate for the party's polls. He feared that if the intra-party polls were annulled, the general election schedule might be announced the next day.
After the initial hearing, the PHC prevented the ECP from making a final decision and postponed the PTI's plea hearing until December 19. The court instructed the ECP to provide comments on the case. Meanwhile, the PTI core committee urged the ECP to assign the bat symbol for the upcoming general elections on February 8.
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