LAHORE: The powers of the ECP to withdraw the electoral sy­mbol of a political party has been challenged before the Lahore High Court.

Munir Ahmad, a lawyer, filed a ‘public interest’ petition through advocate Azhar Siddique and assailed the vires of Sec­tion 215 of the Elec­tions Act 2017, which provides for eligibility of a party to obtain election symbol.

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It may be recalled that PTI contested the Feb 8 elections without an electoral symbol which it lost after a bitter legal battle over its failure to hold intra-party elections.

The petitioner pleads that the right to contest the election under a common symbol cannot be taken away, contending that the ECP being a constitutional body is not a court or a tribunal, therefore, any power wrongly assumed by it for taking away fundamental rights is illegal in terms of Article 8.

The hearing of the petition has been fixed for Feb 16 before Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2024