SC rejects lawyer’s request to meet Imran

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by PTI founder Imran Khan’s counsel to arrange a meeting with his client during proceedings in the Toshakhana case. The court also issued a notice to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the case.

A three-member bench—headed by Justice Hashim Khan Kakar and comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim — heard multiple petitions related to Imran, including bail cancellation applications in the cipher case, Toshakhana case and defamation case.

When Imran’s counsel Latif Khosa requested the court to facilitate a meeting between himself and Imran Khan, Justice Kakar firmly declined, stating that politicians had already taken away the judges’ power of suo motu.

“How can we order a meeting in a criminal case? Political matters should be taken to parliament, not raised here in court,” he said. Justice Panhwar also asked how the court could issue orders on a case that was not even fixed before it.

The hearing saw an entertaining and somewhat unusual exchange when Khosa, while arguing that Imran’s three-year sentence in the Toshakhana-I case had been suspended but not the judgment itself, inadvertently cited a SC ruling that contradicted his own position.

Khosa argued that while the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) two-member bench had suspended the sentence, the judgment itself had not been suspended — and this distinction prevented the PTI founder from contesting elections despite the suspension.

Justice Kakar questioned this reasoning: “If a sentence is suspended in an appeal, there should be no bar — including on contesting elections. When a sentence is suspended, the person walks free. Please read the relevant order of the high court.”

When Khosa read the relevant paragraph of the IHC order aloud, Justice Kakar pointed out that he had only requested suspension of the sentence from the IHC and the court had granted exactly what he had asked for.

When Khosa cited a 2019 SC judgment in support of his argument, Justice Kakar asked him to read paragraph 13 of that very judgment. It then became clear that in that case, both the sentence and the judgment had been suspended simultaneously—the opposite of what Khosa was arguing. The courtroom erupted in laughter.