Pakistan: Peshawar HC Restores PTI’s ‘Bat’ Symbol

In a significant legal triumph for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has reinstated its election symbol ‘bat’ by suspending the decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), which had labeled its intra-party polls as “illegal.”
The court stated that the party’s election symbol would be reinstated in the final decision on the petition, emphasizing that a double bench would address the matter after the winter vacations.
Earlier, Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel of the Peshawar High Court remarked that the ECP must allocate the electoral symbol to PTI as it cannot be revoked after the issuance of the election schedule.
In response to the verdict, Imran Khan’s party PTI posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Hit the bat, embrace freedom!”
The party, founded by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, filed the petition following a declaration by a five-member ECP bench, led by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, which deemed PTI’s intra-party elections unlawful and stripped the party of its symbol.
The party named the ECP and those who contested the elections as respondents, urging the court for an urgent hearing of the matter, which the court took up on Tuesday.
At the start of the hearing, PTI lawyer Ali Zafar stated that the party was given 20 days to conduct elections, and it held internal party elections on December 3 in Peshawar.
The ECP acknowledged the validity of the intra-party elections and issued a certificate to the party.
The PTI counsel noted that following this, the ECP withdrew the electoral symbol, stating that the person who conducted the elections was not authorized. Consequently, it “invalidated the elections, raising objections to the election commissioner.”
Significantly, PTI lost its electoral symbol ‘bat’ after the ECP announced the verdict on its intra-party elections on December 22.
The electoral body had previously reserved its verdict on pleas challenging the party’s intra-party elections after hearing arguments.
Announcing the verdict, a five-member bench of the ECP, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja, declared PTI’s intra-party elections null and void.
Following the ECP verdict, the newly elected PTI chairman, Gohar Ali Khan, no longer holds the position of the party’s head.
Notably, prominent among those who filed applications against the PTI intra-party polls were Akbar S. Babar, Raja Tahir Nawaz, and Naureen Farooq.