PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday vacated its stay order on the oath-taking of MPAs on reserved seats for women and non-Muslims, a move which would boost the strength of opposition parties in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

The court had granted a stay order on the petition of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Parliamentarians (PTI-P), formed by former PTI leader and KP chief minister Pervez Khattak, and stopped the speaker from administering oath to MPAs-elect on reserved seats.

On Thursday, a two-member PHC bench, comprising justices Syed Arshad Ali and Dr Khurshid Iqbal, resumed the hearing on PTI-P application and a similar plea filed by ANP.

The petitioners had sought directives for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to recalculatetheirshare ofreserved seats in proportion to their general seats in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly.

They had requested the court to set aside two notifications issued by the ECP on Mar 4, 2024, notifying the names of returned candidates of different political parties on seats reserved for women and non-Muslims.

Both PTI-P and ANP claimed they were allocated one seat eachout of the total 26 seats reserved for women, whereas not a single seat was allotted to them against the four seats reserved for nonMuslims.

They claimed that they were entitled to three seats each for women and one seat each for nonMuslims.ECP special secretary Mohammad Arshad informed the bench that PTI-P had earlier submitted a similar application to the commission but it was turned down.

He stated the party then challenged the issue before the Islamabad High Court, where the matter was still pending.

The bench questioned PTI-P`s counsel about how the plea could be filed in the PHC when the issue had already been challenged in the Islamabad High Court.

Advocate Sultan Mohammad Khan stated the petition was filed by the PTI-P parliamentary leader, Arbab Mohammad Waseem, who was unaware of the pending litigation in the IHC.

After a short break in the proceedings, Advocate Khan informed the court his client wanted to withdraw the petition.

Subsequently, the bench dismissed the petition and recalled its stay order granted on July 1.

ANP`s petition Meanwhile, Advocate Babar Khan Yousafzai, who appeared on behalf of ANP, said the party has also challenged the allocation of reserved seats.

He said the party has two general seats in the KP Assembly and under the system of proportional representation of allocation of reserved seats, it was entitled to three seats reserved for women and one for non-Muslims.

The ECP special secretary contended ANP`s case was `different` as it won a single seat in the February 8, 2024, general election and then another in a by-election.

He stated that the reserved seats were allocated on the basis of seats won by a political party in the general election.

The ECP official added that if seats were allocated on the basis of by-election results, it would result in complications and disrupt the existing process. The bench referred ANP`s plea to theECP with directives to decide the matter within 10 days.

Last year, the ECP had allocated 10 seats reserved for women to JUI-F, eight to PMLN, six to PPP and one each to ANP and PTIP.

Similarly, two seats reserved for non-Muslims were allotted to JUI-F and one each to PML-N and PPPP.

The number of seats held by opposition parties in the KP Assembly is expected to jump from 27 to 52 following the Constitutional Bench`s decision to render the PTI ineligible for reserved seats in the national and provincial assemblies.

The judgement, issued last month, restored several March 2024 notifications of the ECP declaring 25 candidates of opposition parties elected to reserved seats in the provincial assembly.

Currently, the 120-strong house has 93 PTI-backed MPAs, who were elected as independents, while the 25 reserved seats were vacant.

On Wednesday, the ECP allocated reserved seats in the Punjab and Sindh assemblies, boosting the tallies of all major political parties, except the PTI.