By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The government and the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan traded fresh accusations on Saturday over his court-ordered medical examination, as a broken piece of hospital equipment and a disputed hospital transfer threatened to overshadow the underlying question of his health.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar accused Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of breaching a Supreme Court order by speaking to journalists and issuing public statements about the former premier’s condition, telling reporters that the governing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had never sought to exploit health issues for political advantage.
“PML-N believes that health issues should not be used for political gain,” Tarar said, insisting the party’s position had remained consistent whether in government or opposition. He accused Khan of having released videos and statements about the health of PML-N leaders when they were jailed and he held power.
The minister’s remarks came hours after PTI petitioned the Supreme Court to open contempt proceedings against officials it holds responsible for violating the court’s August 18 order, which had directed authorities to move Khan from Adiala jail to Shifa International Hospital for treatment by a panel of specialists.
A transfer that never happened
The order followed months of concern over an eye condition — right central retinal vein occlusion — that first surfaced in late January and has since prompted repeated hospital visits. A three-judge bench led by Justice Shahid Waheed had given the government 48 hours to carry out the transfer and ordered that Khan’s sister and his personal physician, Dr Faisal Sultan, be present for the examination. Family members, party officials and lawyers were simultaneously barred from discussing his condition publicly before the next hearing.
The government pushed back almost immediately, filing a review petition that argued the order was discriminatory and breached prison regulations. When the Supreme Court’s registrar returned that petition on Thursday over technical defects in the paperwork, preparations at Shifa International intensified overnight, with security arrangements suggesting Khan’s arrival was imminent.
Instead, he was taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in the early hours of Friday, examined, and returned to prison. Tarar attributed the change of venue to what he described as a security threat posed by PTI supporters gathered near Shifa Hospital, saying on social media that the examination — carried out by an ophthalmologist, cardiologist and physician — had found Khan medically fit. Pims later confirmed that two Shifa specialists had assisted with the eye assessment, while its own doctors handled the remaining tests.
Government alleges contempt by Khan’s family
Addressing reporters on Saturday, Tarar insisted the government had honoured every element of the court’s directive. “Was the check-up conducted? Yes. Was it done transparently? Yes. Was his sister present? Yes. Were doctors from Shifa present? Yes. All the obligations were fulfilled,” he said.
He turned the accusation of contempt back on PTI, arguing that supporters who gathered outside Shifa Hospital, removed barriers and generated social media activity had themselves breached the court’s insistence that the process remain free of political motivation. “Contempt has definitely happened,” he said, adding that Khan’s sister and party bore responsibility for the disruption. He dismissed the family’s contempt filing as “baseless,” suggesting it stemmed from PTI’s not having been briefed on developments, and noted that he had posted an update on X as soon as the Pims examination concluded.
Tarar also pointed to statements from the Pakistan Bar Council and Punjab Bar Council distancing the two organisations from lawyers who, he said, were using the case to politicise bar politics “in their personal capacities.”
That did not go unanswereEight members of the Pakistan Bar Council issued their own statement on Saturday condemning what they called the government’s “blatant, wilful and deliberate violation” of the August 18 ruling, describing the court’s order as “clear, unequivocal and binding.” The council’s vice-chairman, Pir Muhammad Masood Chistie, subsequently clarified that the statement reflected the views of those individual members rather than the council’s official position.
The scanner that wasn’t there
Away from the political sparring, a more procedural failure was emerging at Pims itself. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered an inquiry on Saturday after it emerged that a CT angiography (CTA) machine in the hospital’s cardiology department — the test recommended for Khan — was not operational, forcing doctors to send him back to jail without completing the scan.
A senior doctor involved in the hospital’s administration told local media that the shortcomings stemmed from how the visit was handled from the outset. “Ideally, Imran Khan should have been brought in daylight, as it was not an emergency case, and he should have been registered as a patient. All departments were not in the loop,” the doctor said, noting that Khan had arrived in the early hours without prior notice or formal registration.
The confusion deepened once it became known that a functioning CTA scanner did exist elsewhere in the building — in the radiology department — but the information never reached the team treating Khan. According to hospital officials, the Cardiac Centre’s own machine had worked as recently as 2011 before falling into disrepair, while the radiology department had operated a functional scanner since March 2022.
One doctor explained that a CTA differs from conventional angiography in that it is performed by a radiologist using radiation-based imaging rather than a vein puncture, and typically requires a specific referral. “No one advised that Imran be referred to the radiology department,” the doctor said. Health Secretary Muhammad Aslam Ghauri visited the hospital after the failure came to light and confirmed the radiology machine was in working order.
A senior Pims administrator described a deeper institutional habit behind the mix-up, explaining that cardiologists had grown used to referring most CTA cases to private facilities because their own equipment was defunct, and had rarely needed to route patients internally to radiology. “Moreover, cardiologists used to conduct CTAs themselves in the past, so they are not accustomed to referring patients to the radiology department,” the administrator said, adding that when radiology was later asked to produce records of scans it had carried out, it could only supply one report despite claiming roughly a dozen were on file.
Sharif has assembled a committee, chaired by the Establishment Division secretary, to establish how the failure occurred and assign responsibility. Its membership spans senior military and civilian medical figures, including Brigadier Dr Jahanzeb Ali of the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology, Dr Nusratullah Chaudhry, Professor Dr Nadeem Hayat Malik, Brigadier (retd) Dr Azmat Hayat of Pims and AFIC technician Umar Farooq, with authority to bring in further members as needed.
Its brief extends well beyond the immediate incident. The committee will examine whether Pims has possessed the technical capacity to perform CTA scans since 2022, and review the volume and pattern of procedures carried out since then. It has also been tasked with investigating whether the hospital has routinely diverted cardiology patients to private clinics for the scan — and, if so, whether any single private provider was consistently favoured, along with how much business may have shifted away from the public system as a result. The National Health Services ministry has been directed to support the inquiry, which Sharif wants completed so that further action can follow “in accordance with the law.”
Government presses Supreme Court for urgent hearing
Separately, the Islamabad chief commissioner formally asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to expedite consideration of the government’s review petition against the August 18 order, arguing that the ruling had encroached on the government’s constitutional authority. The application follows a fresh version of the petition filed on Thursday after the registrar’s office rejected the government’s first attempt over defects in the accompanying paperwork, giving officials a fortnight to refile.
The petition’s central argument is that hospitalising Khan at a private facility breaches Pakistan’s Prison Rules of 1978, which it says make no allowance for treatment outside prison hospitals, civil hospitals or district headquarter hospitals. It contends the ruling conflicts with the equal-treatment guarantee in Article 25 of the Constitution, warning that other prisoners could now demand comparable arrangements. “If the interim order is not recalled, it will open a floodgate of prisoners seeking similar relief, which under the prevailing law cannot be granted,” the petition states.
It further argues that the courts have overstepped their authority under Section 561-A of the Criminal Procedure Code, which the petition says exists solely to prevent misuse of subordinate court proceedings and offers no basis for directing prison administration. Any remedy relating to jail conditions, it argues, should instead fall under the Prisons Act of 1894 or the Prisoners’ Act of 1900.
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