ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Wednesday rejected a plea by Bushra Bibi, wife of incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan, seeking suspension of her seven-year sentence in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust case.
“We find no sufficient ground warranting interference with the April 30 Islamabad High Court [IHC] order at this stage,” FCC Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan observed while heading the two-judge bench that rejected her plea.
The IHC had declined to suspend her sentence while an appeal against the convictions of both her and her husband remained pending before it.
The FCC bench, which included Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, expressed the expectation that the high court would endeavour to decide the main appeal against her conviction, giving both sides adequate opportunity to be heard while discouraging unnecessary adjournments.
Court urges IHC to avoid unnecessary adjournments
Earlier in the day, the bench had reserved its ruling on the plea, which contended that Bushra Bibi, being a woman and having a serious medical condition, was entitled to suspension of her sentence. It argued that similar relief was contemplated under the first proviso to Section 497(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which deals with cases in which bail may be granted in non-bailable offences.
In its three-page order, the FCC noted that the application for suspension of the sentence had remained pending before the IHC because of successive adjournments sought by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
It observed that without entering into the merits of the application under Section 426 of the CrPC, the IHC had declined to suspend the sentence, principally on the ground that the main appeal had already been fixed for hearing and the appellant’s counsel was not providing the requisite assistance for its adjudication.
The record further showed that the appeal, initially fixed for April 30, was subsequently adjourned to May 7 and then to Oct 5.
The principal grievance raised by the appellant’s counsel concerned repeated adjournments allegedly sought by NAB, which had prolonged proceedings on the application for suspension of her sentence, the FCC observed.
“Be that as it may, the main appeal having already been fixed for hearing, the appropriate course will be to secure its expeditious adjudication rather than undertake a parallel examination of the merits of the suspension of sentence at this stage,” the FCC stated.
The order further said the appellant’s assertion that the appeal involved a voluminous record requiring elaborate arguments did not, by itself, furnish sufficient justification for interference with the IHC order.
It was therefore incumbent upon the appellant’s counsel to provide full assistance to the IHC in hearing the main appeal, after which NAB would be equally obligated to advance its arguments without unnecessary adjournments, the FCC declared.
Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2026
