By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday rejected a request for an immediate meeting with jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, issuing a notice to the government for a response by Tuesday, as the court took up a series of petitions related to the opposition leader and his wife.
The two-member bench, led by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and including Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, turned down the plea submitted by senior Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Latif Khosa, saying such an order could not be passed without hearing the other side. “We have to overcome the hurdle of the maintainability of the application,” Chief Justice Afridi told Khosa during the hearing. “Keep in mind that you have cases pending in other courts.”
The court noted that the request had become infructuous, referring to an August 24, 2023, order against which the case was filed, and added that it could not issue any order on the meeting without first issuing a notice. The Supreme Court also forwarded PTI’s memorandum seeking jail visitation rights for Khan to the relevant executive authorities for consideration under the law.
Khan, the founder of PTI, has been imprisoned since August 2023, convicted in multiple cases he claims are politically motivated after his removal from power in a 2022 no-confidence vote. He is currently held at Rawalpindi’s Central Jail. The court fixed 13 petitions for hearing on Monday, including appeals related to Khan and his spouse, Bushra Bibi. Among the actions taken, the Supreme Court ordered the formation of a three-member bench to hear appeals against Khan’s acquittal in the cipher case. A separate three-member bench was directed to handle appeals against the acquittal of PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the same matter. The Islamabad High Court had acquitted both Khan and Qureshi in the cipher case on June 3, 2024.
In another development, the court dismissed Khan’s bail petition in the Al-Qadir University Trust case as infructuous. Khan was sentenced to 14 years in prison in that case in 2025. According to a supplementary cause list issued last week, the petitions included the Punjab government’s appeal against the granting of bail to Khan and his wife, as well as Khan’s appeal against a case under the Official Secrets Act and a National Accountability Bureau case linked to the Al-Qadir University Trust. Khan’s appeal against a 10 billion rupee defamation lawsuit filed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was also slated for hearing.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Khan’s lawyer Salman Safdar described the simultaneous hearing of 14 petitions as a “sign of political victimisation.” “The chief justice today heard all the petitions against the PTI founder’s cases,” Safdar said. he added that the Supreme Court had “always granted us relief,” and appealed for a meeting with the chief justice. “In the past five months, we have only had a five-minute meeting” with Khan, he said. “Our cases are not being fixed for hearing, and there is a ban on our meetings.”
He asserted that “more than 300 cases” had been filed against Khan, with multiple bail pleas pending before Additional District and Sessions Judge Afzal Majoka. “A letter was written to the chief justice of the IHC this month,” but Safdar said the Islamabad High Court “is not ready to fix any case for hearing.” On Khan’s health, Safdar said the defence had “not yet even brought up medical ground in the court” for bail, but stressed: “This does not mean that we should be kept in the dark about PTI founder’s health.”
A two-page memorandum filed by PTI on Friday alleged that Khan’s rights as a prisoner and a human being have been consistently violated. The memorandum highlighted reports about “Imran being subjected to some secretive medical procedure at a hospital in Islamabad and keeping his relatives in the dark in violation of jail rules.”
Separately, PTI leader Salman Akram Raja told the media that the party had “submitted a memorandum that cases were not being fixed in the IHC.” “The cases heard today were government cases, which were unnecessary,” Raja said, adding that cases in which the party sought relief “have not yet been fixed.” “Khan Sahib is not being allowed to meet us, and neither does he have any information regarding the facts,” he added. “This is completely unfair.”
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