ISLAMABAD: The Special Court (Official Secrets Act) is likely to indict former prime minister Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in the cipher case on Wednesday (today).
Judge Abual Hasnat Mohammad Zulqarnain was earlier scheduled to frame charges on both PTI leaders on Tuesday, but he deferred the indictment for a day.
The PTI’s legal team, meanwhile, submitted half a dozen applications against the notification of the jail trial, distribution of copies of challan and denying the media and general public access to the court.
Last month an Islamabad High Court division bench, comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz, had scrapped the entire proceedings in the cipher case, noting ‘loopholes’ in conducting in-camera proceedings while barring media coverage.
While the special court started the de-novo trial after IHC’s decision, the jail authorities allowed only three to four reporters of private television channels to cover the proceedings.
Barrister Salman Safdar, the counsel for Imran Khan, filed the petition a day earlier before the IHC against the process of his indictment.
He informed the special court judge about the petition before the IHC, but the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) special prosecutor said that the court may continue the proceeding since there was no restraining order issued so far.
The judge then disposed of PTI’s applications and decided to indict Mr Khan on Wednesday (today).
Outside the Adiala Jail, Mr Qureshi’s daughter Mehar Bano Qureshi said the jail administration had placed a glass wall between the detained PTI leaders and reporters.
She also questioned the ‘so-called public’ brought into the courtroom to witness the proceedings and highlighted the problems being faced by families of the detained leaders, saying that proceedings in the cipher case were still not open to public and media.
Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2023
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