Daily Times

The PTI’s jailed chairman, Imran Khan, has filed nine separate petitions in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), challenging the dismissal of his pre-arrest bail pleas across various cases, a result of his inability to appear in the respective courts.

Deposed former prime minister Imran Khan, who is entangled in approximately 180 cases including those filed under the country’s anti-terrorism law, found himself sentenced to three years in prison on August 5. Imprisoned and thus unable to attend the courts where he had originally submitted his pre-arrest bail applications, the PTI chairman encountered subsequent dismissals of these applications due to his absence. The applications, presented through legal representative Salman Safdar advocate, name the state and complainants as respondents.

Imran Khan implores the IHC to deem these trial court orders as invalid, illicit, and contradictory to the principles enshrined in Article 4 and 10-A of the Constitution.

He requests the IHC to guide the trial courts to comprehensively reassess the cases on their merits, “thereby rectifying the previous denial of bail due to my non-appearance.” Moreover, the PTI chairman urges the IHC to instruct the respondents to refrain from executing his arrest warrants in instances where his pre-arrest bail applications remain pending in a trial court.

“The dismissal of [these] application[s], lacking proper deliberation on the merits of the cases, [has] denied the petitioner his rightful access to a ‘Fair Trial’,” almost all the petitions add.

PTI vice chairman and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Saturday moved the Islamabad High Court against a special court’s orders to remand him in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) over an FIR filed under the Official Secrets Act, 1923 for his role in the alleged leak of a diplomatic cypher. In a petition filed against his physical remand granted by a special court formed to hear cases related to the Official Secrets Act, he argued that the prosecution had failed to present any evidence against him and that was why the orders should be declared null and void. “The Official Secrets Act court’s orders to give physical remand should be declared null and void,” read the petition, adding that an order for a judicial remand should be passed instead. Qureshi maintained that a “malicious case” was filed against him in “connivance with the federal government” for “political vendetta”.

The PTI stalwart added that an investigation was conducted by the FIA. “I neither took the cypher telegram, nor disclosed its transcript to any unauthorised persons. Records prove that the cypher is with the foreign affairs ministry,” he stated. Qureshi maintained that despite all these facts, the FIA had arrested and successfully obtained his physical remand. “The trial court granted [the FIA my] physical remand, despite the prosecution failing to produce any evidence. Even in the FIR, the cypher is alleged to be in the possession of someone else,” he pleaded.In conclusion, Qureshi stated that he had conveyed the message to the then-prime minister as per law while performing his duties as the foreign minister.

The federation and the home secretary have been made respondents in the plea. Last week, the FIA arrested Qureshi from his residence in the federal capital.