Pak SC appeals against former Prime Minister Imran Khan's three-year sentence
Pakistan's Supreme Court has filed an appeal to overturn former Prime Minister Imran Khan's three-year conviction in the Toshakhana corruption case, according to a media report on Sunday.
Pakistan's Supreme Court has filed an appeal to overturn former Prime Minister Imran Khan's three-year conviction in the Toshakhana corruption case, according to a media report on Sunday.
The Registrar's Office on Saturday returned the appeal filed by 71-year-old Khan through his counsel Latif Khosa under Article 185 of the Constitution, challenging the decision of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on December 11, 2023 to grant an dismissing similar plea due to lack of requisites. including the absence of actual controversies or chronology of the previous trials.
The petition was filed with a plea seeking to quash Khan's conviction on August 5 by an IHC judge for illegally selling government gifts, Dawn News reported.
The Toshakhana case is based on allegations that the former prime minister violated Toshakhana rules or the state repository.
All gifts given by foreign leaders to top Pakistani leaders during their travels are kept in the Toshakhana.
However, the registry returned the appeal, noting that the appeal had several shortcomings, such as the summary statement.
In addition to the existing requirements, the petition must include factual controversies or chronology of the lawsuit, as well as the findings established by the forums below.
In addition, the petition must contain questions requiring consideration and decision by the Supreme Court, as well as relevant facts, events and documents in the case demonstrating a violation of legal rights/right to damages.
The brief statement in the petition must also be signed by a lawyer of the Supreme Court. Moreover, the applicant did not inform the respondents by notifying them about the filing of the petition.
Accordingly, the court returned the petition in the original to the petitioner's lawyers for the purpose of removing the deficiencies within fourteen days before January 6, 2024.
The petition alleged that the petitioner had filed a request for suspension of sentence for three years in the main appeal, which came up for hearing at the IHC on August 28.
During the oral arguments, a request was made to the Supreme Court to suspend the execution of the sentence.
The judgment was challenged by the petitioner, the petition stated, because it suffered from jurisdictional defects.
On August 8, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) issued a notice to disqualify the appellant under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution without even giving the petition a chance to be heard .
Under the recent amendments to the Electoral Act 2017, the period of exclusion under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution has been reduced to five years from the previous life term.
The petition alleges that the ECP notice was never communicated to the petitioner, who was behind bars at the time.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: December 24, 2023 | 1:01 PM IST