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The Peshawar High Court on Thursday dismissed the Sunni Ittehad Council\u2019s petition challenging the Election Commission of Pakistan\u2019s decision<\/a> to reject the party allocation of reserved women and minority seats.<\/p>\n In a 4-1 verdict earlier this month, the electoral watchdog ruled that the SIC was not entitled to claim quota for reserved seats \u201cdue to having non curable legal defects and violation of a mandatory provision of submission of party list for reserved seats which is the requirement of law\u201d.<\/p>\n The SIC \u2014 joined<\/a> by PTI-backed independents who won the elections sans their electoral symbol \u2014 had filed the petition through its chairman, Sahibzada Muhammad Hamid Raza, seeking directives of the court for the ECP to allocate reserved seats to the council based on their strength in the national and provincial assemblies.<\/p>\n The commission had also decided to distribute the seats among other parliamentary parties, with the PML-N and the PPP becoming major beneficiaries<\/a>. Meanwhile, the verdict was rejected by the PTI as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n On March 6, a two-member bench of the PHC had barred the oath-taking<\/a> of lawmakers allotted the reserved seats. It issued a pre-admission to the ECP and all the respondents in the case, listing six questions that needed to be determined. The next day, a five-member larger bench extended<\/a> the bar until March 13.<\/p>\n Yesterday, Attorney-General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan and the counsels for the PPP and ECP had completed their arguments.<\/p>\n