ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Tuesday requested the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to set aside the trial court’s judgement dated 05.08.2023, and declare the conviction, sentence imposed upon him illegal and without lawful authority and to acquit him of the charges.
A division bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri will take up his petition today (Wednesday). Imran Khan on Tuesday filed an appeal against the trial court’s judgment through advocates, Barrister Ali Zafar, Sardar Latif Khosa, Babar Awan, Salman Akram Raja, Shoaib Shaheen, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, and others, and cited the district election commissioner as respondent.
In his petition, the PTI chief contended that he is aggrieved of and dissatisfied with the order Additional Sessions Judge, Islamabad (West) Humayun Dilawar passed on August 5, whereby, he was convicted under Article 174 of the Election Act, 2017 to three years in jail and Rs100,000 fine or in default of six months in jail. He added that the said impugned order is not sustainable and is liable to be set aside.
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He further said that this order is without lawful authority, tainted with bias, and is a nullity in the eye of the law, and liable to be set aside.
Imran Khan’s counsels said that the impugned judgement has been passed “with a pre-disposed mind” by the trial judge to convict and sentence the appellant irrespective of the merits of the case.
They stated that the impugned judgement has been passed without providing a proper or adequate opportunity of hearing to the appellant’s lead counsel (Khawaja Haris), who on that day received a text message from his clerk, Syed Daman-e-Ali, that he was followed by persons from the agencies who were dissuading him from filling certain Cr.P.L.A’s in the Supreme Court.
The appellant’s counsel then drafted an application addressed to the chief justice of Pakistan setting out afore-noted facts and praying for taking action in accordance with the law.
They added that but when the trial court judge came in the court at 12:30 p.m., the appellant’s counsel proceeded to inform him of the transfer application, and as to why he had been delayed by showing him a copy of the application filed by him with the additional registrar of the SC, the judge refused to hear him and said he was going to announce the order, and thereafter, proceeded to read out what he declared as the short order, while the detailed judgement he said will be released shortly once he has properly vetted it.
They contended that thus, the impugned judgement was announced despite the fact that the appellant’s counsel was very much in court fully prepared to address arguments.
The counsel though explained the reason for his delay in arriving in the court, but the trial judge, “who throughout the proceedings had been exhibiting his extreme bias towards the appellant and his counsel, and constantly using disparaging remarks against them, even in their absence, was bent upon carrying out a well-orchestrated plan.”
The counsels further said that the impugned judgement being tinged with bias, and having been passed without affording any proper or adequate opportunity to the appellant’s counsel to submit arguments in support of his defence, is no judgement in the eye of the law.
They also argued that the very pronouncement of judgement in the absence of the appellant and without marking the presence of the appellant’s counsel is illegal and in violation of the explicit provisions of the law. They added that the subsequent arrest of the appellant from his residence in Lahore minutes after the pronouncement of judgement by the trial court, when even a warrant to procure his arrest could not have conceivably been issued from Islamabad, also betrays the orchestrated conviction and arrest of the appellant on 05.08.2023.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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