The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday issued a written order removing office objections to the appeals filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi against their convictions in the Toshakhana-II case.
Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro issued the written order pertaining to proceedings held on March 12, allowing the applications seeking condonation of delay in filing the appeals and directing the Registrar’s Office to assign regular numbers to the appeals.
The court held that the explanation offered by the appellants’ counsel for the alleged delay was satisfactory and ordered that all office objections be removed.
According to the order, the defence counsel argued that the appeals had been filed within the statutory 30-day limitation period following the trial court’s judgment. He further contended that there was no legal requirement for filing a fresh power of attorney (vakalatnama) in the High Court where counsel had already represented the accused during the trial.
The Registrar’s Office had objected to the absence of a newly signed vakalatnama. Counsel informed the court that several attempts had been made to obtain the signatures of the appellants in jail, but the prison authorities, particularly the jail superintendent, did not facilitate the process.
The counsel also submitted that the remaining objections were merely technical in nature and could not justify returning the appeals. He argued that once an appeal was filed, the Registrar’s Office was required to place it before the court along with any objections, while the question of whether such objections were valid is to be determined by the court on the judicial side.
The order observed that an appeal was a continuation of the trial and provided the appellant with a statutory right to seek a reappraisal of the evidence. The court noted that this right could not be denied on purely technical grounds and that appeals must be decided on their merits after hearing both parties.
An accountability court had sentenced Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi to 10 years’ imprisonment each, along with fines, on December 20, 2025. The couple filed their appeals before the IHC on December 29, 2025.