Islamabad: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday suspended the membership of 77 members of parliament based on the Supreme Court order regarding reserved seats.
The Supreme Court has been awaiting the decision of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to award the allocation of the Sunni Alliance Council (SIK) last week to another party.
PML-N’s decision will suffer a bigger loss as 44 legislators will lose their seats after the SC order.
The SIK reserve seats were earlier distributed among other parties including PML-N, PPP, JUI-F, MQM-P and PML-Q.
The Supreme Court order was first issued by Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan last week, suspending the membership of 27 MPAs.
The ruling coalition in Punjab lost 24 women MPs and three minority MPAs due to the SC verdict.
The suspended MPAs include 23 from PML-N, two from PPP and one each from IPP and PML-Q.
On March 4 last year, the ECP accepted the petition of the opposition parties and decided that seats in the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies would not remain vacant and would be allocated through a proportional representation process based on the seats won by the political parties.
The development saw the PTI-backed SIK lose a total of 77 seats – 23 National Assembly seats (20 women and 3 minorities), 25 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly seats (21 women and 4 minorities), two Sindh Assembly seats (women) and 27 seats. Punjab Assembly seats (24 women and 3 minorities).
The Peshawar High Court rejected the Sunni Union Council’s (SIC) plea for separate seats for women and minorities.
The party opposed the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) decision to provide reserved seats for women and minorities.
