Islamabad (Web Desk): The federal government on Friday challenged the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) November 21 verdict to declare Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder and former premier Imran Khan’s jail trial in the cipher case as null and void.
Advocate Raja Rizwan Abbasi submitted the petition on behalf of the federal government.
In the petition, the government maintained that the IHC failed to assess the facts appropriately before declaring the special court established to hear the cipher trial null and void.
It added that the IHC does not have the authority to abolish the status of a special court.
Imran Khan, special court judge Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain, Director General (DG) Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Inspector General of Police (IGP), Deputy Commissioner (DC), and chief commissioner Islamabad, among others, have been named as respondents in the petition.
On November 21, 2023, IHC nullified the notification for conducting PTI founder Imran Khan's jail trial in the cipher case registered on charges of leaking state secrets.
A two-member division bench of the IHC comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Riffat Imtiaz announced the verdict on the intra-court appeal filed by the PTI chief against his jail trial.
In its three-page short order, the IHC stated that the jail trial can be conducted in "exceptional circumstances".
"In exceptional circumstances and where it is conducive to justice, a trial can be conducted in jail in a manner that fulfills the requirements of an open trial or a trial in camera provided it is in accordance with the procedure provided by law."
The court also declared that the November 15 notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice after the caretaker cabinet's approval of the jail trial "cannot be given retrospective effect".
As a result, Imran and Qureshi’s indictments in the case stood null and void, and the trial was conducted again in open court. Charges were subsequently framed against them for a second time on December 14.
Imran Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, both incarcerated in Adiala jail, were indicted in the case on October 23. Both pleaded not guilty.
The cipher was about former Pakistan ambassador to the US Majeed's meeting with Lu.
It is pertinent to mention that on August 29, the IHC had suspended the PTI chief’s sentence in the Toshakhana case, but a special court established under the Official Secrets Act had directed the prison authorities to keep Imran in “judicial lockup” in the cipher case.
The cipher case is related to a piece of paper that former premier Imran Khan had waved at a public rally last year ahead of a vote of confidence that he lost. Later naming the US, the PTI founder had claimed that the cipher was 'evidence' of an 'international conspiracy' to topple his government.
Later, after Imran’s removal, then-prime minister Shehbaz Sharif' cabinet gave the green signal to initiate action against the former prime minister and handed over the case to the FIA.
