PHC moved against ECP order suspending KP Senate by-election

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati and Senate by-election candidate Irfan Saleem have approached the Peshawar High Court against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to suspend the poll process for a vacant Senate seat from the province.

According to the petitions, filed on Thursday, both applicants asked the court to declare illegal and unconstitutional the April 21 order issued by an ECP bench as well as a notification released the same day. The by-election had been scheduled for April 23.

A three-member bench of the ECP had halted the by-election proceedings after an application was moved by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MPA Jalal Khan. The seat had fallen vacant after Murad Saeed was de-notified by the commission on March 25.

Petitions seek restoration of poll process

The two petitions, described as almost identical, were filed through advocates Bashir Khan Wazir and Ali Gohar Durrani on behalf of the speaker and Irfan Saleem, respectively. Irfan Saleem is the president of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Peshawar district chapter and had been nominated by the party for the vacant seat.

The petitioners asked the court to declare that a lawful vacancy had arisen through the March 25 de-notification and that the de-notification had not been challenged by any aggrieved person. They also requested the court to rule that Jalal Khan had no locus standi to move the application before the ECP and that the entire exercise undertaken by the commission had no legal basis or constitutional authority.

They further sought directions for the ECP and the provincial election commissioner in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to proceed with the Senate by-election forthwith in accordance with law.

Arguments raised in the pleas

In their petitions, the applicants stated that Murad Saeed had been declared a proclaimed offender by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, after which one Mohammad Aslam filed an application seeking his disqualification under Article 63(1)(h) of the Constitution. They said the ECP subsequently disqualified and de-notified him, and that neither the proceedings nor the de-notification had been challenged to date.

The petitioners said that following the vacancy, the ECP issued the by-election schedule in accordance with the law. They added that Irfan Saleem’s nomination papers were accepted and that he was declared a contesting candidate by the returning officer on April 18, 2026.

They contended that Jalal Khan was not an aggrieved person and had sought suspension of the by-election on the premise that no lawful vacancy had arisen. According to the petitions, Murad Saeed himself did not challenge his de-notification, nor did anyone on his behalf seek to have it set aside. They contended that Article 224(5) of the Constitution mandated that a Senate vacancy must be filled within 30 days, and the impugned suspension was in clear violation of the said constitutional provision.

They also argued that the reasoning advanced by Jalal Khan was legally untenable, particularly where it linked oath-taking with the existence of membership. The petitions stated that Article 223 of the Constitution showed that election to a seat carried legal consequences independent of oath-taking, while Article 65 only barred a returned candidate from sitting or voting before taking oath and did not negate the legal status arising from election.

The petitioners maintained that the ECP entertained Jalal Khan’s application without lawful justification and beyond its jurisdiction before suspending the by-election process through the impugned order.