ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General Salman Akram Raja on Thursday accused the government of deliberately engineering the transfer of cases relating to Imran Khan to the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to deny the jailed former prime minister justice, calling the Supreme Court “helpless and toothless” in the process.
Addressing a press conference, along with Babar Awan, Taimur Jhagra and others, Raja said the country had witnessed the Supreme Court unable to even decide which cases it had jurisdiction to hear, as matters pertaining to the PTI founding chairman Imran Khan were transferred to the FCC – a constitutional court established last year he dubbed “hand-picked,” comprising judges “selected” by what he called the “Form 47 regime.”
“I wish I had never been a lawyer. I wish I had never stood at that rostrum,” Raja said, describing proceedings at the Supreme Court a day earlier as “a total disgrace to the constitution and the law.”
He said the apex court had appeared visibly helpless as cases pertaining to Imran Khan pending before it were shifted to the FCC.
He said the apex court had been left completely helpless as cases against Imran Khan were adjourned for three weeks, adding: “The nation has been told plainly by the powers that be that it will get no justice, except the kind they decide to hand it.
He said that once the cases against Imran Khan were shifted to the FCC, the Supreme Court and its judges were left resembling “the court of a magistrate 3rd class, where decisions over which case stayed with which judge appeared arbitrary rather than principled.
Raja called on all state institutions not to abandon “justice and equity” and to do what was right regardless of who was involved.
He said the sanctity of “chadar and chardiwari” had never been violated even during British rule – a restraint, he said, that was nowhere to be seen today under what he called an “installed regime” and its handlers.
“Even the barbaric colonial rulers never trespassed on private property in the dead of night, despite the fact that we were slaves. But today, we have local brown sahibs who show no such restraint while raiding the private homes of those who dissent,” he lamented.
Raja said the party would continue to stand by the oppressed and would confront what he called the usurpers ruling the country.
He alleged that a PTI worker, Satti, had died in police custody in Rawalpindi after being tortured, which he said led to a fatal heart attack.
He said class discrimination in society had to end, alleging that ordinary citizens who supported Imran Khan were being abducted and forcibly disappeared, which he described as a crime.
He went on to name several individuals he said had been picked up or gone missing at the hands of police, warning that the party would keep up the pressure “because dawn breaks eventually, no matter how long the night.”
Raja said ordinary citizens who raised their voice against what he called a corrupt system were being denied their basic rights, while those in power treated the country as though they had a hereditary privilege to impose a particular family on the masses.
He also criticised the distribution of federal tax revenue, saying the centre was constitutionally required to transfer around 57 per cent of collections to the provinces but was failing to do so.
He alleged that funds from petroleum development levy (PDL) were being diverted to fund what he called the “extravagances” of the ruling family, pointing to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s recent private trip to London as an example.
Meanwhile, later in the day, Raja said he was released after four hours in police custody, having been detained while travelling to Kotli Sattian to attend the funeral of party worker Ijaz Satti.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026