Overview
- Pakistan’s top court rejected Shibli Faraz’s plea to suspend the Senate election for his vacated seat, citing non-interference in the electoral process.
- The five-judge bench set aside the Peshawar High Court’s indefinite adjournment and directed it to hear both sides and decide the petition on merit.
- Polling in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly went ahead from 9am to 4pm with three candidates contesting: PTI’s Khurram Zeeshan and Irfan Saleem, and Taj Muhammad Afridi.
- The case stems from a Faisalabad anti-terrorism court’s 10-year sentences for PTI leaders Faraz and Omar Ayub over the May 9, 2023 unrest, after which the ECP disqualified nine PTI lawmakers.
- PTI maintains the ECP cannot disqualify a senator without a reference from the Senate chairman, as justices questioned the party’s stay request given it had already nominated a candidate and prosecutors noted surrender requirements.