PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday gave the Election Commission of Pakistan the last opportunity to reply to the petition of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and former senator Azam Khan Swati for orders for the ECP to hold the Senate polls in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Wiqar Ahmad adjourned the hearing into the case until Dec 24, directing the ECP to submit its response.

It declared that it won`t adjourn proceedings on the next date of hearing and would hear the case in any case.

The bench directed special secretary for the ECP Mohammad Arshid to ensure that the commission decide the matter and update it.

Petitioner Azam Swati has requested the court to declare illegal the two ECP orders, one issuedon March 26 and the other on April 2, 2024, through which it first hinted at postponing Senate polls in the province if oath was not administered to the opposition MPAs elected on reserved seats and subsequently ordering the election postponement in the province.

The respondents in the petition are the ECP through its secretary and five candidates, who were later declared MPAs-elect on reserved seats and on whose applications the commission postponed the polls.

On March 28, the ECP declared in response to applications of five women MPAs-elect that if the speaker of the provincial assembly failed to comply with the directions of the high court to administer oaths to the lawmakers elected to reserved seats, it would be constrained to postpone Senate elections in the province until the administration of oaths to the applicants.

Subsequently on April 2, when Senate elections were held in other provinces and Islamabad, the commission announced postponing the polls in KP till administering oath to the MPAs-elect on reserved seats.

Advocate Ali Zaman appeared for the petitioner and stated thatnon-holding of senate polls here was discriminatory and an injustice to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He stated that 11 senate seats from this province had been lying vacantastheECPhadnotbeenconducting polls on it.

He stated that after the judgment of the Supreme Court whereby it set aside the ECP`s order of assigning reserved seats to parties other than PTI, there was now no excuse available with the ECP to further delay holding of the polls.

The bench inquired from ECP`s special secretary Mohammad Arshid whether KP was having representation in the Senate or not, to which the official said that half of the seats were vacant.

The official requested the bench to allow them some time as they would be filing comments in the petition.

The bench directed him to file the reply before the next hearing and inform it about the stand of the ECP on the matter.

The petitioner has said that he is a contesting candidate for the Senate elections in 2024 on general as well as technocrat seats.

He, however, said that instead of holding polls in KP, the ECP passed the impugned orders on March 26 and April 2, 2024, without hearing him on the matter.