Pakistan SC rejects Imran's plea seeking stay on trial court proceedings

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday rejected the plea of former Prime Minister Imran Khan seeking to stay a trial court's proceedings in the Toshakhana case, Dawn reported on Wednesday.

Earlier on October 21 last year, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had disqualified the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman in the Toshakhana reference under Article 63(1)(p) of the Constitution for making “false statements and incorrect declaration”.

In May this year, Islamabad Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Hamayun Dilawar rejected Khan’s challenge to the maintainability of the Toshakhana reference and indicted him in the case.

The trial court’s decision was challenged before the Islamabad High Court, which remanded the case back to the former on July 4 to re-examine the matter in seven days in the light of legal questions to decide the maintainability of the reference, Dawn reported.

Subsequently, Imran Khan moved the SC and urged the apex court to set aside the IHC directive. He also sought a stay on the proceedings before ADSJ Dilawar until his appeal was decided.

The PTI chief had moved his appeal through senior counsel Khawaja Haris Ahmad. A two-member bench, comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Musarrat Hilali, took up Imran’s plea on Wednesday.

At the outset of the hearing, PTI chief lawyer Khwaja Haris stated that two petitions were already pending with the IHC, one concerning the trial court’s jurisdiction and the other seeking the transfer of Imran’s trial from the court of ADSJ Dilawar, Dawn reported.

ECP lawyer Amjad Pervez stated that the IHC order in the case had already been implemented and a hearing on a petition against the trial court order was scheduled for tomorrow.

Justice Afridi pointed out that since the two pleas were currently with the IHC, issuing directives to the trial court would not be appropriate. The court expressed hope that the IHC would hear all identical petitions filed by the PTI chief alongside this case, Dawn reported.

The two-judge bench rejected the PTI counsel’s plea to halt criminal proceedings in the case and referred the case back to the IHC and disposed of the petition, Dawn reported.

The petition was brought by the PTI chief before the apex court earlier this month, in which he argued that the IHC was not legally justified in remanding the same questions of law that formed the basis of the impugned order for re-determination by the same trial judge who had already given his judgement, Dawn reported.

Khan added that the IHC set aside the petitioner’s plea by remanding the matter back to the trial court for re-decision despite the fact that the petitioner had also applied for transfer of the complaint from the trial judge to any other court.

The petitioner contended the IHC had committed a jurisdiction error in remanding the case to the same trial judge against whom an application had been filed for transfer of the case.