IHC rejects PTI’s request to immediately suspend by-elections on nine seats

The Islamabad High Court rejected an application filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) seeking immediate suspension of by-elections’ scheduled announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan on nine vacant National Assembly seats.

Last week, the PTI filed a miscellaneous application with the IHC asking the court to suspend the election schedule on nine NA seats.

The ECP had announced the schedule for by-elections on nine NA seats that fell vacant after Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervaiz Ashraf accepted the resignations of nine PTI MPAs.

Interim IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard the case on Wednesday. The court asked if there’s any legal ground for suspending the election schedule. The commission was told that the seats have fallen vacant so they have issued a schedule, it said.

The lawyer representing the PTI said that we have been asking for by-elections since day 1. But we want by-elections to be held on all 123 seats that the party MNAs have resigned from, he said.

The court, however, rejected the PTI’s request to immediately suspend the schedule for by-elections and issued notice to the ECP.

It adjourned the hearing till August 16 and asked the commission to submit a reply by then.

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