By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan registrar’s office on Tuesday accepted a refiled contempt of court petition accusing senior government officials of defying a court order that directed jailed former prime minister Imran Khan be transferred to a private hospital for medical treatment, after an earlier version of the filing was returned for procedural deficiencies.
The petition, brought on behalf of Khan’s sister, Dr. Uzma Khan, centers on an Aug. 18 Supreme Court order instructing authorities to move the 73-year-old former premier from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi to Shifa International Hospital, a private facility in Islamabad, within 48 hours. The order called for examination and treatment by a multidisciplinary medical board and directed that Khan’s personal physician and sister be permitted to take part in the process.
Instead of Shifa, authorities transported Khan to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, a government-run hospital, before returning him to prison. The diversion has become the center of an escalating legal dispute between Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The Supreme Court registrar’s office had returned the original contempt petition earlier Tuesday, citing an incomplete list of allegations against the named respondents. PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said the registrar’s office had informed him of the objection directly, and the party moved quickly to correct the filing and resubmit it. The registrar’s office subsequently assigned the case number 8/2026.
Uzma Khan separately filed an application seeking an expedited hearing, arguing that delay could cause irreversible harm to her brother, whose health she described as deteriorating.
“Every further delay may cause serious and irreparable harm,” the application stated, according to the filing. It argued that the Aug. 18 order was binding regardless of any pending review petition and that the proper response to any government objection to the order was to seek relief from the Supreme Court itself, not to depart from the court’s directions unilaterally.
“If any genuine clarification or modification was considered necessary, the proper course was to approach the Supreme Court, rather than to depart from or substitute its express directions,” the application said.
The petition asked that the matter be scheduled for hearing this week, contending the applicant had “a strong prima facie case” and that no party would be prejudiced by an accelerated timeline.
Diverging accounts of the hospital visit
The contempt petition, originally filed Saturday by Dr. Uzma Khan against Sharif and several senior officials, alleges that Khan did not receive the comprehensive medical examination the court had ordered. According to the petition, Khan underwent only a routine eye exam, received an eye injection and had his blood pressure checked while at the government facility.
Uzma Khan, a physician, was present for the examination and met with her brother at the government hospital. Khan’s personal physician, Dr. Faisal Sultan, was separately dispatched to Shifa International Hospital, where he waited nearly three hours before departing when the former prime minister never arrived.
The government has disputed that any violation occurred. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a televised statement Saturday that ophthalmologists from Shifa were brought to examine Khan at the government facility and that his sister was permitted to be present throughout.
“All the requisites, all the requirements of the Supreme Court order were fulfilled,” Tarar said.
Tarar has attributed the change in venue to security concerns, saying PTI supporters had gathered outside Shifa International Hospital ahead of Khan’s expected arrival, a situation he said authorities determined posed a risk. He has also accused Khan’s party and family of politicising the medical proceedings in a manner he said itself ran counter to the spirit of the court’s order.
A parallel fight over the order itself
The government has also sought its own relief from the courts. A day after the Aug. 18 order was issued, the federal government filed a petition seeking review of the ruling, specifically challenging the designation of Shifa International Hospital as the required treatment site. That filing argued that allowing a convicted prisoner to be treated at a specific private hospital could invite similar requests from other inmates. The registrar’s office returned that petition as well, citing filing deficiencies, though the Islamabad chief commissioner has since sought an expedited hearing on the review petition separately.
Attorneys representing Uzma Khan have argued that a pending review petition does not, on its own, suspend the binding force of the original order.
“The filing or pendency of any review petition on part of the chief commissioner does not, by itself, suspend or dilute the binding force of the order unless its operation is expressly stayed by the Supreme Court,” the early hearing application stated.
PTI Secretary-General Salman Akram Raja and advocate Uzair Bhandari filed the contempt petition on Uzma Khan’s behalf. Gohar, speaking Monday after meeting with the Supreme Court registrar, said he had been assured that a bench would be constituted soon to take up the case. Asked whether the party’s legal maneuvering signaled any behind-the-scenes negotiation with the government, Gohar rejected the suggestion, saying Khan does not negotiate settlements — pointing to the three years Khan has already spent in custody as evidence.
Khan led Pakistan as prime minister from 2018 until April 2022, when he was removed from office through a parliamentary no-confidence vote. He has remained in custody since August 2023 and has faced more than 100 legal cases since leaving power, spanning corruption allegations to charges tied to unrest among his supporters following his brief arrest in May 2023.
All of his convictions have since been suspended or overturned on appeal, with one exception: a 14-year sentence in the Al-Qadir Trust land corruption case, which remains in force while an appeal is pending. Khan has denied wrongdoing in that case and others brought against him.
The Aug. 18 order was issued by a three-member Supreme Court bench as part of a broader set of proceedings concerning Khan’s medical treatment and access to family members and legal counsel while incarcerated.
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