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ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions court on Monday rejected the application of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran and upheld the non-bailable arrest warrants issued for him in the Toshakhana case due to his continued absence in the case. hearings.
Announcing his reserved judgment, the Additional District and Sessions Judge, rejected the PTI chief’s request for exemption and upheld the arrest warrant issued for him.
The court issued directives to produce former premier Khan before it on March 18.
At the start of the hearing, PTI chairman Khawaja Haris’ lawyer filed an application seeking exemption from personal appearance citing security threats. Haris also filed another plea seeking to declare the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) complaint against the PTI chief as “not maintainable”.
Haris, arguing before the court, said that his client did not deliberately avoid appearing before the court.
He faced serious security threats, argued Haris.
He said “we have filed petitions in Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court (LHC).”
The court had to investigate the legal aspect of the case, he said.
He asked the court that before issuing an arrest warrant, it should be decided whether the complaint is admissible or not.
Khan’s lawyer further said that the complainant was not the district election commissioner.
The complaint had not been filed by the competent authority, he said, adding that the signature of the complainant was present on the last page of the complaint.
“There was no need for an affidavit in lodging a complaint against Khan and the complainant had different signatures on the affidavit and the statement,” Haris said, adding that the signature should be examined by a handwriting expert.
Haris said that a complaint against the corrupt practice and criminal proceedings could have been filed within 120 days as per the Election Act, 2017, but in this case, it was filed after three years. The IHC had stayed the warrant till today and was directed to continue the case as per law. He asked the court to decide whether the case was admissible or not before further proceedings.
Arguing before the court, Saad Hasan, counsel for the ECP, said that the arrest warrant issued for Khan was still valid and the IHC had rejected Khan’s plea to cancel the arrest warrant. The IHC stayed the order for a few days to appear before the court, he said. “If the court thinks the complaint is inadmissible then there is no problem in that,” he added.
Hasan said “the IHC’s suspension of the warrant expired today”, adding that “the high court had directed Khan to appear before the court today.”
Haris said there was no reason to take criminal action against the former prime minister. The ECP needed to submit arguments about the admissibility of the complaint, he said.
The ECP’s counsel said that Khan had deliberately delayed the case and asked the court to reject Khan’s request for exemption. Arguing before the court, another lawyer, Amjad Pervaiz, said that everyone in the country has security threats but court proceedings could not be stopped for this reason. The PTI chief had no concrete reasons for not appearing before the court, he said.
He said the court had granted relief to Khan several times but he only “took advantage of it”. The lawyer also said that he was ready to present arguments on the conduct of the case but insisted that Imran should appear in court first.
After hearing the arguments of both parties he reserved his judgment for some time.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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