Supporters of Imran Khan install a giant bat symbol along a roadside in Karachi. File / Reuters

The political party of Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Imran Khan lost a key battle at the country's top court to retain its cricket bat election symbol at next month's polls.

The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has suffered a huge setback because of its deprivation of its iconic poll symbol, cricket bat, due to the judgment of the Supreme Court (SC), which agreed with the decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of taking away the symbol from it.

The court's ruling came after hours of wait shortly before midnight. The ECP had assailed the Peshawar High Court (PHC) verdict declaring the ECP order "illegal, without any lawful authority and of no legal effect.”

The ECP banned the PTI from using the image in December, after ruling the internal party polls it had ordered were not carried out in accordance with election law — leading to multiple legal challenges, which ended up in the SC this week. Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa upheld the ban in a ruling broadcast on television.

He said the ECP first called on the PTI to hold elections in 2021 when it was the ruling party: "Therefore, it can't be stated that ECP was victimising PTI," he said.

Party spokesman Zulfi Bukhari labelled it a "sad day for democracy." PTI candidates will now have to choose individual symbols.

The contention had started with the Dec.22, 2023, decision of the ECP, barring the PTI party from keeping its electoral symbol for the upcoming Feb.8 elections, citing irregularities in their internal polls that did not comply with the party's own constitution and election laws.

This prompted the Imran Khan-led party to challenge the revocation of their symbol in the PHC. A single-member judge granted temporary relief, reinstated the bat symbol, and referred the case to a larger bench for a hearing on Jan.9.

Then, on Dec.30, the ECP challenged the PHC’s jurisdiction over the matter. However, in a dramatic turn of events, the PHC reversed its earlier decision and upheld the ECP’s order.

Facing the prospect of losing its cricket bat symbol for the elections, the PTI took its fight to the highest court in the land - the Supreme Court. However, in a strategic move, they later withdrew their appeal, hoping for a favourable outcome from the PHC.

The PTI did get what it wanted with PHC's nullification of the ECP decision, but not for long as Saturday’s verdict took away the much-sought-after electoral symbol. The top court allowed ECP's petition by setting aside the PHC ruling and upheld the December 22 decision of the electoral body.

The five-page order stated that the judges do not agree with the PHC justice that the ECP did not have any jurisdiction to question or adjudicate the intra-party elections of a political party.

"In a country with high illiteracy rates, many will struggle to know who to vote for without the bat symbol," he said, warning of a "systematic effort" by the political establishment to sideline the PTI.

Resultantly, all the PML-N senators, who had then been elected, had become independent rather than being affiliated with their party.

The biggest dilemma the PTI faced due to the Supreme Court decision was that it had been left without a new symbol because the time for its allotment passed several days back. As a result, more than 800 PTI candidates who are taking part in the Feb.8 elections, will not get any one poll symbol because their party did not have that. Now, they will be contesting the elections on different symbols. As a result, all of them will be independent contestants. Additionally, the voters will have no knowledge about the PTI candidates due to the absence of a combined symbol.

The PTI’s bid to get the symbol of ‘batsman’ of the PTI-Nazaryati political party collapsed as the latter’s head rejected it and disowned a memorandum of understanding signed by the two parties. It was never made public and was kept secret.