Pakistani classical singer Mai Dhai on iconic Times Square poster

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court is set to hear a key political case on Monday involving petitions challenging the denial of reserved seats in Parliament to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), a party supported by the country’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

These seats in Pakistan’s national and provincial assemblies are constitutionally reserved for women and minorities to ensure greater political participation. They are allocated to the various political factions on a proportional basis, taking into account the number of seats they have won in elections.

Politicians from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party were forced to run as independent candidates in the national elections in February after Pakistan’s Supreme Court stripped them of their party symbol, the cricket bat, due to electoral errors.

The independent candidates supported by the PTI won the most seats, forming the largest bloc in the National Assembly, but due to their lack of original party identity, they decided to join the SIC.

However, for technical reasons, the Pakistan Election Commission decided not to allocate the reserved seats to them, but to divide the SIC’s share among other parties.

“All these returned candidates were PTI candidates who were forced to pose as independents by a series of legal errors by the ECP,” noted Justice Munib Akhtar, one of the 13 Supreme Court judges hearing the case, during the final hearing on June 4.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court last month stayed and upheld the Peshawar High Court’s verdict in the case following the ECP’s decision.

The outcome of the proceedings can be politically significant as it can affect the composition of the National Assembly and thus influence how laws are passed and how the government functions.

Khan’s party expressed hope of winning the 78 parliamentary seats allocated to rival parties in the elections.