LHC declares PTI plea against withdrawal of election symbol, intra-party elections non-maintainable

LAHORE (92 News) - The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday declared the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) plea against withdrawal of the election symbol and intra-party elections as non-maintainable.

Justice Jawad Hassan announced the reserved verdict on the plea of PTI leader Umar Aftab Dhillon. Asad Bajwa, counsel for the federal government, opposed the plea.

The petitioner, in his plea, had contended that the ECP had no authority to challenge the internal appointments of PTI officials or nullify PTI’s intra-party elections. He stated that the ECP is not a court of law and cannot question the appointments or examine the validity of the political party’s intra-party elections for any reasons.

He added that the election symbol of 'bat' was unlawfully withdrawn as the ECP had no jurisdiction to determine conformity of intra-party elections with the party constitution. He prayed to the court to restore the election symbol and declare the intra-party elections as legal.