By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court has summoned the complete case record concerning former prime minister Imran Khan’s transfer to a private hospital, stepping into a matter that has been before the Supreme Court and setting up a fresh test of which institution now holds authority over Pakistan’s constitutional disputes.
A three-member bench of the FCC, led by Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan and sitting alongside Justices Ali Baqar Najafi and Aamer Farooq, invoked Article 175-E of the Constitution on Tuesday to call for the records. The court also asked for details of any comparable cases pending before the country’s high courts.
Article 175-E was inserted into the Constitution under the 27th Amendment and gives the FCC the power to call in the record of any case and to rule on matters raising significant constitutional questions.
The move came as the bench heard a petition brought by three inmates of Adiala jail, who are asking to be moved to a private hospital for medical assessment — the same relief the Supreme Court granted Khan in an order issued on 18 August. That earlier ruling had directed the government to move the PTI founder to Shifa International Hospital within 48 hours so that a multidisciplinary medical board could examine and treat him.
Explaining its decision to call in the file, the FCC bench noted that the inmates’ case had its roots directly in the Supreme Court’s August ruling, and said it would formulate the constitutional questions requiring final determination in a written order to follow.
Attorney general: SC no longer holds the power
The records were summoned after Attorney General Mansoor Usman Awan told the bench that the 27th Amendment had stripped the Supreme Court of its authority to safeguard fundamental rights, and that this power now sat with the FCC alone. He argued that, following the insertion of Article 175-F, any question touching on constitutional interpretation or constitutional rights fell within the FCC’s jurisdiction, and that it would therefore make sense for the court to obtain the full record of the case still before the Supreme Court.
Referring to the August 18 order, Awan said the ruling had since become a source of wider difficulty, with a growing number of prisoners now petitioning the courts for the same facilities extended to Khan.
Chief Justice Khan remarked during proceedings that the Constitution and the law must be applied equally, regardless of whether a person was wealthy or poor.
Justice Najafi pressed the attorney general on whether the government had objected when the Supreme Court heard the matter on August 18. Awan said Additional Attorney General Chaudhry Aamir Rehman had indeed raised objections at the time, but that the court proceeded to issue its order regardless.
“Shouldn’t the Supreme Court have first settled the question of maintainability?” Justice Najafi asked, adding that the central issue facing the FCC was determining which court now had jurisdiction over cases involving constitutional interpretation and fundamental rights.
“That is precisely the case,” Awan replied.
Justice Farooq observed that the Supreme Court’s August 18 ruling had been an interim order rather than a final one. Turning to the inmates’ petition, the attorney general suggested the FCC could, if it saw fit, order the formation of a medical board to examine the three men.
At the close of arguments, the bench summoned Khan’s case records and adjourned the hearing without setting a date for the next sitting. The order landed a day before the Supreme Court was due to resume its own hearing into Khan’s health.
How the case reached the FCC
The three inmates — named in the petition as Muhammad Ilyas Khan, Mohammad Ismail Hussain and Owais Altaf — first took their case to the Islamabad High Court after the Supreme Court’s August 18 order, seeking similar relief for themselves. The IHC dismissed their petitions on 31 August, ruling that a prisoner has no legal entitlement to be moved to a hospital of his own choosing, and that responsibility for treating prisoners rests primarily with the state’s administrative apparatus and government-run hospitals.
The three men then took their challenge to the FCC last week, asking the court to strike down the IHC’s ruling as null and void and to grant them the same medical facilities afforded to Khan.
Their petition invokes Article 25 of the Constitution, which guarantees equal treatment for all citizens, arguing that while the Supreme Court’s August 18 order remained in force, they too were entitled to the treatment it had ordered for Khan. The petitioners have further asked the court to direct that they be allowed to contact family members abroad via WhatsApp calls, mirroring a similar concession that had been made for Khan.
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