IHC extends stay order against Imran Khan’s jail trial till tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: (Suno News) The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has extended the stay order against the trial of former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan in the cipher case till tomorrow.

A two-member bench, headed by Justice Gul Hassan of the IHC, heard the intra-court appeal against the jail trial of the PTI chairman in the cipher case. Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz was also part of the bench.

Salman Akram Raja, lawyer for the PTI chairman, argued before the court that the matter of appointing a judge was very important, adding that he would place some facts before the court.

The court said that according to the documents produced by the attorney general, the process of appointing a judge started from the high court.

Salman Akram Raja told the court that there were hundreds of judges of the subordinate judiciary in Islamabad, but the government gave the charge of the special Official Secrets Act (OSA) court to a specific judge.

Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb said that the additional attorney general had produced the record before the court and added, “We have seen the documents that the process for the appointment of the judge was started from the IHC.”

The PTI chairman’s lawyer told the court, “We were not even shown those documents,” on which Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb said, “We had the same question in our mind, but after seeing the documents the situation became clear.”

He added, “You first respond to the objection of the attorney general that the appeal is inadmissible. The power of ordering jail trial is vested in the judiciary, and the executive only has to implement it.”