By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The sister of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan went back to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, for the third time, to ask for an early hearing of a contempt case accusing the government of defying an order to take him to a private hospital in Islamabad.
Dr Uzma Khan’s lawyer, Uzair Karamat Bhandari, filed the application under Order XXXV, Rules 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2025. It asks the court to list the contempt petition next week. It follows claims by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party that his blood pressure rose above 190 in recent days.
The application says media reports put the reading at 192 and describes serious concern about his health. “If an early hearing of this matter is not granted, the applicant’s and Imran Khan’s guaranteed rights will continue to be prejudiced,” it states. It argues that his fundamental rights, particularly to health and well-being, to medical advice and facilities, and to access to family, would continue to be violated.
On 18 August, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court directed the government to move Khan to Shifa International Hospital within two days while hearing petitions about his health. Instead, he was taken overnight to the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and driven back to Adiala jail in Rawalpindi.
Information minister Attaullah Tarar said a team of doctors had examined him and declared him medically fit. Mr Tarar said the decision to go to Pims was taken because of the security situation created by PTI workers on the way to and outside Shifa. The government filed a review petition against the 18 August order a day after it was issued.
Dr Uzma filed the contempt petition on 22 August. It names Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Islamabad’s chief commissioner Sohail Ashraf, interior secretary Ahmed Raza Sarwar, Punjab’s inspector general of prisons Mian Salik Jalal and Adiala jail superintendent Sajid Baig. The petition also asks for weekly meetings between Khan and his family, including his sisters Noreen Niazi and Aleema Khan and his cousin Qasim Zaman, and for telephone calls with his sons, Kasim Khan and Sulaiman Khan, twice a week. She later filed a further contempt petition in the Supreme Court, again alleging that the August order had not been complied with.
The court’s registrar rejected her first two requests for an early hearing. In both rulings, the office said the fixation policy required cases to be heard in turn, and that 94 criminal original petitions of the same category were already waiting. The second request came after the main petition had been listed for 16 September.
That hearing never produced a ruling on the contempt claim. The day before, the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) had summoned the Supreme Court’s records on Khan’s transfer. The FCC acted on a plea from three Adiala inmates who wanted the same relief the Supreme Court had given Khan. It directed the court’s office to requisition the cases and list them before it under Article 175-E, which was added to the constitution by the 27th Amendment. The article lets the FCC call for the record of any case and decide matters involving major questions of constitutional law.
The Supreme Court bench, led by Justice Shahid Waheed with Justices Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Ishtiaq Ibrahim, said listing requisitioned cases before the FCC did not fall under clause 5 of Article 175-E. It nonetheless adjourned its own proceedings, saying propriety demanded it, for a date after three weeks. The attorney general had asked for that time to assist the court on the FCC’s jurisdiction. No date has since been fixed, and nearly eight weeks have passed.
The latest reports about Khan’s blood pressure trace back to 2 November. His sister Rubina Khan, who lives in Britain, said he had told his lawyer that his blood pressure had reached 192, and that it had been normal a year ago. His lawyer had been allowed to see him for the first time in seven months, according to her. The origin of the figure is disputed. The lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, distanced himself from the reports and said he was not their source. People familiar with the meeting told the paper that Khan had mentioned a reading of around 190 on one occasion but was otherwise generally fit.
Earlier medical evidence had already raised the issue. A report filed in the Supreme Court said a Pims cardiologist examined him on 1 August for fluctuating blood pressure, palpitations and headache. A medical board recorded a reading of 140/80 on 10 August and noted marked anxiety, and it recommended more contact with his immediate family. The jail superintendent told the court he was receiving adequate care and that jail doctors checked his vital signs three times a day.
The PTI’s core committee has called the blood pressure reports extremely alarming and urged the chief justice of Pakistan to ensure that court orders on his treatment are carried out. The government denies the party’s accusations and says the required treatment is being provided at Adiala, along with a diet plan and exercise equipment. Khan, 73, has been in prison since August 2023 and is serving a sentence in the £190m corruption case.
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