IHC suspends arrest warrants issued against Imran Khan in ECP contempt case
The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday suspended the bailable arrest warrants issued against Imran Khan following his failure to show up for the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) contempt of court proceedings against him.
The order to suspend the ECP's decision to issue the warrants was handed down by a larger bench of the IHC following a plea submitted by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).
While setting aside the order, however, the IHC directed the PTI chairman to answer the show-cause notice issued to him by the ECP on August 24.
Last month, ECP had issued a second show-cause notice to Imran Khan after he failed to reply to an earlier notice regarding the contempt of court proceedings against him.
More recently, the ECP had ordered Islamabad Capital Police to arrest PTI chairman Imran Khan and present him before the commission for a hearing on September 25. The warrant was bailable against surety bonds worth Rs0.1 million.
The commission has been hearing a contempt of court case against Imran Khan filed by PTI dissident Akbar S. Babar.
Imran Khan had initially challenged the maintainability of the contempt petition and raised objections over ECP’s jurisdiction to initiate contempt proceedings against him; the commission, however, declared on August 10 that it had the legal right to hear the case.
It had then issued a formal show-cause notice to the PTI chairman, asking him to submit a reply by Aug 23.
PTI chief's counsel Babar Awan had then appeared before the five-member ECP bench — headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) retired Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza — and pleaded that they wanted to challenge the ECP’s judgement regarding the maintainability of the contempt petition and hence should be granted some time to do so.
Imran Khan had accused the ECP of being biased in the foreign funding case following which his counsel had tendered an apology with the commission. However, the PTI chairman in a TV interview later said that his counsel had tendered an apology in his personal capacity and that he himself had not apologised.