Membership of 27 government MPAs in Punjab Assembly suspended after Supreme Court verdict

In view of a recent Supreme Court verdict, Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan on Friday took action by suspending the membership of 27 MPAs of the ruling coalition who were elected to reserved seats in the Punjab Assembly.

The move follows a decision by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court staying an earlier order of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) regarding allotment of additional reserved seats to various political parties in national and provincial assemblies earlier this week.

During today’s session of the Punjab Assembly, Malik Aftab, member of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), which mainly comprises members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), raised objections and read out the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the reserved members places.

Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan confirmed the order of business of the opposition member and ordered the immediate suspension of the membership of the nominated members in the reserved seats of the ruling alliance.

Members of the Sunni Ittehad Council praised the speaker’s decision by banging on the table.

Also Read: SC suspends PHC’s seat allotment order

Following the Speaker’s decision, 24 seats for women and three seats for minorities became vacant in the Punjab Assembly, resulting in the ruling coalition’s membership falling to 200. The Sunni Ittehad Council now has 106 seats and the PPP has become the third largest party with 15 seats.

In addition to the above parties, the PML-Q has 11 seats, the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) has 7 seats, while the PML-Z, Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) and Tehreek-e-Pakistan have 7 seats. Labaik Pakistan (TLP) has one seat each in the Punjab Assembly.

Those suspended from the reserved minority seats include Tariq Masih Gul, Waseem Anjum and Basruji.

This development follows an earlier decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on December 22, 2023, which deprived the PTI of its election symbol due to irregularities in its intra-party elections. The Supreme Court later upheld the ECP’s order, prompting the party to field its candidates as independents in the February 8 general elections.

Subsequently, independent candidates supported by the PTI joined the SIC and petitioned the ECP for allotment of seats reserved for women and minorities in the national and provincial parliaments.

However, on March 4, the ECP rejected the application on the grounds that the SIC had failed to submit a priority list of candidates for reserved seats before the elections. The SIC challenged the order before the PHC, which upheld the ECP’s decision on March 14. The SIC later appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the PHC verdict in favor of PTI.