By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The sister of the imprisoned former prime minister asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to hold Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and several senior officials in contempt, alleging they have ignored the court’s own orders guaranteeing her brother regular visits with family and phone calls with his sons.
The petition, filed by Dr. Uzma Khan, marks the second contempt action she has brought in less than two weeks over the treatment of her brother, Imran Khan, the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party who has been in custody since 2023. It escalates a legal and political standoff that has kept Khan’s family, his legal team, and the government locked in dispute over the conditions of his imprisonment.
At the center of the latest filing is an Aug. 18 order in which the Supreme Court directed authorities to transport Khan to Shifa International Hospital, a private facility in Islamabad, for a medical evaluation, and to arrange weekly meetings between Khan and his relatives, along with phone calls with his two sons twice a week. Uzma Khan’s petition contends that in the two weeks since that order, prison officials have permitted only two brief visits — both with a different sister, Noreen Niazi, on Aug. 18 and again on Aug. 25 — while every other relative, including Uzma Khan herself, has been shut out entirely.
The sons, the petition says, have not spoken with their father by phone since March.
“This is a case of deliberate and wilful disobedience and violation of the order, interference with the process of law and obstruction of the judicial process,” the petition states, adding that the officials’ conduct has undermined the court’s authority and exposed it to “disrespect, ridicule and contempt.”
Named as respondents are Sharif, along with Islamabad Chief Commissioner (retired) Lt. Sohail Ashraf, Interior Secretary Ahmed Raza Sarwar, Punjab Inspector General of Prisons Mian Salik Jalal, and Adiala Jail Superintendent Sajid Baig — the same officials named in Uzma Khan’s first contempt petition, filed Aug. 22, which accused authorities of defying the court by taking Khan to a government-run facility, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, rather than the private hospital the court had specified.
The new petition, filed through attorney Uzair Karamat Bhandari, asks the court to fold the earlier filing into the current one, treating them as a single, continuous complaint.
To justify holding Sharif personally responsible, the petition leans on a legal precedent from 2012, when the Supreme Court held that ultimate accountability for defying its rulings rests with the head of the federal government. That case, involving the appointment of an oil company executive, ended in a contempt conviction against then-Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani — a outcome Khan’s sister argues should be repeated here. Sharif, the petition notes, holds the position of chief executive of the federation, making him answerable for the government’s failure to comply.
The petition also argues that the court’s instructions were never open to question in the first place. They were issued, it notes, with both the Islamabad advocate general and the additional attorney general present in court, and were, in its words, “clear, unambiguous, unequivocal and fully capable of implementation” — leaving officials, it says, with “no portion thereof” requiring further interpretation.
The dispute unfolds against the backdrop of Khan’s deepening legal troubles. He was convicted in August 2023 of concealing gifts he received through Toshakhana, the state repository for presents given to Pakistani officials, and sentenced to three years in prison. In January, he received a far longer sentence — 14 years — in a corruption case involving roughly £190 million tied to the Al-Qadir Trust.
Even before the Supreme Court’s Aug. 18 order, Khan’s access to visitors had narrowed considerably. The Islamabad High Court had previously ordered that he be allowed to meet family, lawyers, and associates twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays — but for months leading up to the new Supreme Court directive, he was largely cut off from visitors altogether. Even after the order took effect, his sisters were turned away again on a recent Tuesday, according to the petition.
In a separate development Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court resolved two petitions alleging that Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were being held in solitary confinement. The court found the petitions valid and ordered the Adiala jail superintendent to ensure that neither prisoner is held in isolation.
Uzma Khan’s first contempt petition, concerning the hospital dispute, is scheduled to be heard Sept. 16 by a three-judge Supreme Court panel consisting of Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim.
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