ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was irritated on Friday with an application seeking adjournment of a case moved by the PTI regarding the denial of election symbol — cricket bat — to the party.

Through the case, the party had requested for the fixation of a petition seeking review of the court’s Jan 13 decision upholding the denial by the ECP of the iconic election symbol to PTI.

A three-judge SC bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa eventually postponed the proceedings for Oct 21, but with a caution that no further request for adjournment would be entertained.

CJP rules out further adjournment, tells PTI hearing will be held on Oct 21

When the case was taken up, the court’s attention was drawn to an application moved by Advocate on Record (AoR) Anis Mohammad Shahzad stating that the counsel for review petitioner, Hamid Khan, had some pressing family engagement at Lahore.

However, the court order said, the nature of the pressing family engagement was not disclosed.

“In the circumstances, we are not persuaded to adjourn the case, however, in the interest of justice and only by way of indulgence we do so,” said the order.

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On June 29, PTI moved an application for an early hearing of the review petition.

The party said the question had arisen whether taking away the ‘bat’ symbol from PTI had resulted in the non-allocation of reserved seats to them or did the ECP wrongly interpret the judgement under review.

PTI had contended that the matter should be considered in conjunction with the reserved seat case.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2024