At the outset of the hearing, Chief Justice IHC Justice Aamer Farooq said that he would decide on the suspension of PTI chairman’s sentence today, the verdict was reserved at the end of the hearing the arguments of ECP’s lawyer Amjad Pervaiz.
The court staff has informed media that the verdict will be announced at 11 am tomorrow.
Election Commission’s lawyer Amjad Pervaiz’s arguments were prolonged and the hearing was completed at 3:45 pm.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan filed a petition on Monday asking for the revocation of a three-year prison term in the Toshakhana case. A two-member panel of the Islamabad High Court heard the case.
The hearing was presided over by a division bench that included Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq.
Amjad Pervaiz, an attorney for the Election Commission of Pakistan, entered the courtroom and began speaking in favour of his client. Latif Khosa, Imran Khan’s attorney, was present as well.
Referring to the Rahul Gandhi case in his arguments, the counsel for the Election Commission said that when Rahul Gandhi was sentenced to two years in prison, he applied for suspension of the sentence, which was rejected.
Amjad Pervaiz said that he was not opposing the appeal for suspension of sentence on the basis of short words, but only saying that the appeal cannot be processed without notice to the government.
“My only request is that a notice be issued to the government, the law does not have the word complaint but the word ‘state’,” he said.
It may be recalled that Latif Khosa had said last week that according to the rules, the complaint should have gone to the magistrate first and then the case should have taken place.
The Chief Justice said that even if there is any lapse in filing the complaint, it will not affect the trial.
Amjad Pervaiz said, “Yes, my point is that the trial has to be done by the court. He said that this is not a matter of judicial jurisdiction; they are saying that the Sessions Court did not come through the complaint magistrate.
Amjad Pervaiz’s failure to show up in court on August 25 for the prior hearing of the case was postponed because of his “extremely unwell” claim, due to which the hearing was adjourned to August 28 [Today].
The court had later, after the completion of arguments of ECP’s lawyer Amjad Pervaiz, reserved the verdict.
The Supreme Court’s cause list, which is available online, indicated that CJP Bandial will not hear any routing matters this week.
In addition, the Supreme Court stated that the sentence against the PTI leader rendered by the Islamabad Sessions Court was “flawed” after hearing a number of Khan’s pleas.
“In hindsight, the trial court rendered a verdict in a single day that was incorrect; there are errors in the trial court’s ruling,” according to Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial. “Right now, we are staying out of this situation. Let tomorrow’s [August 24] High Court decision stand. The matter will be heard tomorrow,” he added.
The Supreme Court requested a report on the PTI chief’s health and facilities available to him in his detention cell by Monday [Today] on August 24.
Later that day, the Supreme Court issued an order that stated that it would be best to hold off until the IHC made a decision on the matter.
