Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday reserved its judgment in an appeal seeking to suspend the sentence of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman in the Toshakhana criminal case. The two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri reserved the verdict after hearing arguments from two sides at length.

At the outset of hearing, Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) lawyer Amjad Farooq cited the reference of Rahul Gandhi’s case, who was sentenced for two-year imprisonment and the court also terminated his plea for suspension of the sentence. The Indian court had declared in the said case that suspending a punishment was not a hard and fast rule.

The lawyer prayed the court to issue a notice to the state counsel and no decision should be taken before hearing him. He also gave a reference of the Zahoor Elahi case and said that so far he was not opposing the plea as firstly it was compulsory to hear the state counsel. He said that he was submitting five judgments of high courts pertaining to the private complaints as reference.

Amjad Pervaiz said the PTI chairman’s lawyer had raised six legal points and he had to answer them as well. They had tried to build a narrative that it was a first case where the right of defence of the accused was abolished, he added.

He further argued that the ECP Secretary had permitted to file the complaint on the direction of the Commission, and that permission was part of record. The chief justice said that the ECP ordered the office to file the complaint instead of giving direction to a certain person, and questioned that how the ECP Secretary assumed himself as the person concerned and why he issue the direction to file the complaint. The CJ asked whether anyone else other than the ECP Secretary could have filed the complaint. He also questioned whether the ECP’s Director General Law was also authorized in that regard.

Amjad Pervaiz said that the draft of the complaint was approved by the full commission of the ECP, while the secretary was an administrative head of the commission. The lawyer said that he was not provided the verified copy of the affidavit of Khawaja Haris. The affidavit was also mentioned in the top court but it was not filed through a civil miscellaneous appeal (CMA).

Amjad Pervaiz argued that the trial court had not violated the high court’s orders. The high court had ordered the PTI chief’s counsel to give arguments before the trial court regarding maintainability of the case, but he did not appear on the said date. The ECP’s lawyer said that the trial court had declared the witnesses of former prime minister as irrelevant as the case was about miss-declaration of assets. The trial court had stated that the case was not about the income tax returns and the witnesses were tax consultants, he said, adding that the court was authorized to reject the request to present the witnesses if they were being produced to delay the case.

He said the PTI chairman had appeared before the trial court only four times in 44 hearings. After hearing arguments, the bench reserved the verdict regarding suspension of the PTI chief’s sentence. The IHC will announce the verdict today (Tuesday) at 11am.