ISLAMABAD: PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday requested the Supreme Court to order the federal and provincial authorities to desist from “political victimisation” and curtail unwarranted exploitation of state machinery, which Mr Khan says violate his fundamental rights.

In his petition, moved through Advocate Salman Safdar, Mr Khan pleaded that given the extraordinary circumstances, the Supreme Court should protect his fundamental rights. This, he said, would help restore the trust and confidence of the public at large in the criminal justice system.

Mr Khan has filed the petition after several of his pre-arrest bail applications were recently rejected by trial courts, mostly for his non-appearance in court.

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The former prime minister also requested the apex court to set aside trial court orders of dismissing his pending pre-arrest bail petitions, which he said had been dismissed without discussing merits or technicalities. He asked the court to rectify the “grievous miscarriage of justice” and uphold the enforceability and effectiveness of constitutional safeguards by accepting the present petition.

He argued that trial courts’ decisions to dismiss pre-arrest bails on technical grounds violated articles 4 and 10-A of the Constitution despite the fact that he had been put behind bars.

Meeting with legal team

Meanwhile, a member of the PTI’s legal team, Advocate Umair Khan Niazi, was allowed to meet the former prime minister in Attock jail on Thursday.

Initially, a six-member legal team reached Attock jail to meet Mr Khan but was stopped at the outer picket for around half an hour. Later, only one lawyer was allowed to see Mr Khan in a meeting that lasted about an hour.

Other lawyers, including Naeem Haider Panjutha, stayed outside the jail for around three hours.

Mr Niazi later told reporters that Mr Khan was in high spirits and ready to remain behind bars for 100 years despite the trying times. “My sacrifices are for the nation and democracy,” the lawyer quoted Mr Khan as saying.

The lawyer said Mr Khan didn’t shave for many days and when he asked for a reason, Mr Khan told him that “I was provided with a mirror today”.

NAB amendments case

Meanwhile, a day ahead of the scheduled hearing in the NAB amendments case, the PTI chairman on Thursday pleaded before the Supreme Court that his challenge to the amendments was not speculative since all pending references or investigations against public office-holders had been terminated or stalled indefinitely to make them ineffectual.

Headed by CJP Umar Ata Bandial, a three-judge Supreme Court bench will on Friday (today) resume hearing Mr Khan’s challenges to the August 2022 amendments to the National Accountability Ordi­nance (NAO).

In the previous hearing, on May 16, the bench asked both the federal government and the petitioner to furnish concise statements, which the court would evaluate. The bench said that the hearing would be fixed if any clarification was needed; otherwise, the order would be announced by assembling the bench.

The court then emphasised that 46 hearings had already taken place in the present case.

In a concise statement filed in the apex court on Thursday, Mr Khan explained that this state of affairs violated the fundamental right to life, liberty, dignity, equality and property of the people of Pakistan.

Mr Khan explained that the provisions of the amendment acts challenged by him were not those enacted during his government. He said the only amendment introduced by his government and retained by it, and which had some connection with the amendments in the challenge, was Section 4 introduced in the NAO, 1999.

Amjad Iqbal in Taxila also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2023