Islamabad (Web Desk): The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Wednesday filed a petition in the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the Elections (Second Amendment) Bill, 2024, which was passed by the National Assembly and Senate on Tuesday.
The petition filed under Article 184(3) of the Constitution by PTI Chairman Gohar Khan via lawyer Barrister Salman Akram Raja urges the apex court to declare the Elections (Second Amendment) Bill, 2024 bill "null and void".
The federals government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) have been named respondents in the petition.
The PTI has also moved the apex court to immediately halt the electoral watchdog from allocating reserved seats to other political parties.
The petition stated that the PTI has already submitted lists for the reserved seats to the ECP.
The party demands that women and non-Muslim reserved seats be allotted to PTI, asserting their entitlement to these seats following the Supreme Court's July 12 decision.
On Tuesday, The National Assembly passed the Elections (Second Amendment) Bill, 2024 amid strong protest from opposition benches.
The newly passed Election Act Amendment Bill 2024 imposes restrictions on independent candidates, barring them from joining any political party after a specified period post-election.
As per the bill, the candidates who do not submit an affidavit of party affiliation to the returning officer, will be considered independent.
It seeks to amend previous legislation that allowed independents to affiliate with political parties after elections.
Under the new amendment bill, parties failing to submit lists of candidates for reserved seats within the stipulated time will be ineligible for those seats.
The bill also stipulates that candidates failing to declare party affiliation before the returning officer will be considered independents, with the amendment retroactively effective from the Election Act 2017.
The bill, when it becomes a law, might reverse the PTI's return to the parliament after its "resurrection" in the assemblies following the Supreme Court's July 12 ruling which had declared the Imran Khan-founded party eligible for reserved seats.
Since then, the ECP has notified as many as 93 lawmakers from three provincial legislatures as PTI members.
The electoral body issued a notification of 29 members of the PTI from Punjab, 58 from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and six from Sindh.
Meanwhile, 39 lawmakers in the NA, who had shown their affiliation with the PTI in their nomination papers, have also been declared by the ECP as PTI members.