Islamabad:
On Wednesday, the chief judge Yahya Afridi clearly indicated that the Supreme Court would not allow prolonged adjournments in the petitions of release of the founder of PTI, Imran Khan, hearing in relation to several cases linked to the violence of May 9, 2023.
A bench of three members led by the chief judge Afridi, and including Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui and judge Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb, made calls against the decision of the High Court of Lahore (LHC), in which a bench led by Judge Shahbaz Ali Rizvi had rejected the impaired application of Imran.
During the procedure, the chief judge observed that the accusation should first cross the establishment threshold of the way in which the rejection by the LHC of the deposit could be maintained. “We will first hear the accusation,” he said.
The hearing started with an assistance lawyer informing the bench that the special prosecutor Zulfiqar Naqvi could not appear due to food poisoning and was currently admitted to the hospital. He asked that the case will be adjourned until next week.
The chief judge, however, replied that the case would be taken Thursday (today). Lawyer Salman Safdar, representing the founder of the PTI, opposed the request for adjournment and urged the court to allow them at least to discuss.
He pointed out that the LHC had rejected the advocacy advocacy under deposit of its client in November of last year after six months of suspension, during which 16 hearings took place and eight different prosecutors were modified. “The accusation has repeatedly looked for the adjournments. We are now fed up,” he said.
The Afridian chief judge assured the defense that the case would not be subject to unnecessary delays. Lawyer SAFDAR asked that members of the family of the founder of the PTI, who were present in court, be authorized to address the bench.
However, the chief judge refused the request, declaring: “We will only hear the lawyer. We will not allow family members to speak in court.” The hearing was assisted by the sisters of the founder of the PTI as well as the senior party leaders. Later, the bench postponed other procedures until Thursday (today).
In their detailed verdict, the LHC judge Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Judge Tariq Mahmood Bajwa had declared: “From this point of view of the argument of the question provided by the scientist of the petitioner (Imran Khan) to the effect that on May 9, 2023, the petitioner was in prison which is not useful.”
In its detailed verdict, the bench reproduced the declarations of two police officials, witnesses of the accusation, who claimed to have secretly assisted the meetings of the PTI in which the founder of the party would have given instructions to other party leaders to attack the military installations in the event of his imminent CIH arrest.
The bench observed that witness declarations should not be qualified as late.
He indicated that the role attributed to the petitioner, obvious from the declarations of the witnesses, attracted the provisions of article 120-B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) and 121-A (conspiracy with a view to committing an offense of wick or trying to wage war against the country) of the Pakistani penal code.
The bench judged that the declarations of the Prima facie witnesses reflected that the conspiracy and the complicity of the offenses committed on May 9 were perpetrated by the petitioner on May 4 at the Chakri rest area, Rawalpindi, May 7 and May 9 in Lahore.
