Pakistan: Peshawar High Court restores ‘bat’ as poll symbol of Imran Khan’s party PTI

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) suspended the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) order, which had declared the party’s intra-party polls “illegal,” giving the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) a significant legal win. This was reported by Geo News on Tuesday. The court stated that a double bench will consider the case during the winter break and that the party’s electoral emblem will be reinstated in any final ruling on the petition. Judge Kamran Hayat Miankhel of the Peshawar High Court had earlier said that as the election timetable cannot be withdrawn, the ECP will have to give the PTI the electoral symbol. Reacting to the verdict, Imran Khan’s party PTI posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Hit the bat, embrace freedom!” The petition was submitted by the Imran Khan-founded party following the ruling that the PTI’s intra-party elections were illegal and that the party had lost its symbol by a five-member ECP bench led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, according to a report from Geo News. The party requested an urgent hearing of the matter from the court, naming the ECP and those who disputed the polls as defendants. The court then took up the plea on Tuesday. PTI attorney Ali Zafar stated at the beginning of the hearing that the party was granted 20 days to organise elections and that they did so on December 3 in Peshawar for internal party elections. The ECP granted the party a certificate after recognising the validity of the intra-party elections. According to the PTI’s legal representative, the ECP then removed the electoral emblem, claiming that the person in charge of the elections was not the appropriate person. Thus, it “raised objections to the election commissioner, invalidating the elections”. Following the announcement of the results of the ECP’s intra-party elections on December 22, PTI lost its electoral symbol. Prior to this, the ECP had postponed making a decision on appeals contesting the party’s intra-party elections. The PTI’s intra-party elections were ruled void by a five-member ECP court led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, who announced the decision. Gohar Ali Khan, the recently elected PTI chairman, is no longer the party’s leader in the wake of the ECP ruling. Raja Tahir and Akbar S. Babar were prominent among those who submitted applications for the PTI intra-party polls. (With agency inputs)