Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has prayed to the apex court to set aside Islamabad High Court verdict, suspend his sentence and release him on bail during pendency of his appeal in the IHC.
Nawaz Sharif on Friday filed an appeal under Article 185(3) of the Constitution through Advocate Khawaja Haris against the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judgement dated 25-02-2019. The ex-PM was convicted on 24-12-2018 by the Accountability Court, Islamabad, under Section 10 of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999 and sentenced for 7 years imprisonment.
Kh Haris submitted that in view of the medical boards' reports, it was clear that incarceration of Nawaz Sharif (petitioner) in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore, posed serious danger to his life due to lack of specialised care and facilities in jail to cope with and manage his medical condition, coupled with the fact that he is 69 years of age and his health has actually considerably deteriorated since his confinement in jail.
He contended that first writ petition, filed in January for the suspension of sentence did not include the medical grounds as till that date medical condition of the petitioner had not yet deteriorated to the extent of becoming life threatening.
Khawaja Haris contended that despite there being no challenge to the veracity of the medical boards' reports, the division bench of Islamabad High Court on 25-02-2019 dismissed the writ petition for suspension of sentence and his release on bail on medical ground. Therefore, the impugned judgement is illegal, violative of the law and in derogation of the petitioner's fundamental rights.
He submitted that the IHC has totally misconstrued the meaning and connotations of term 'exceptional circumstances' and/or 'hardship cases' as applicable to cases involving prayers for suspension of sentence on medical grounds, and thereby rendered a judgement which is manifestly in derogation of law.
The diagnosis recorded in each of the reports submitted by the special medical boards of various hospital said that the petitioner is suffering from recurrent angina, ischemic heart disease, coronary artery disease, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease stage-III, diabetic nephropathy, dyslipidemia, hyperuricemia, together with unanimous recommendations that the petitioner requires 24-hour round the clock monitoring in a multi-disciplinary facility for managing his ailments.
The ex-PM's counsel maintained that past medical history of Nawaz Sharif, that involves 15 years of multiple hospitalisation requiring multiple coronary artery stenting procedures, coronary artery bypass surgery in 2016, another intervention in 2017 due to closing of one of the bypass grafts, was not referred by the division bench of IHC in its judgement.
The division bench has failed to exercise jurisdiction vested in it by law in passing the impugned judgement without adverting to the peculiar facts pertaining to the medical conditions of the petitioner.
The division bench further committed a grave jurisdictional error in basing its judgement on the premise that in none of the reports prepared by the special medical boards there was any mention that the petitioner's continuous incarceration in jail will be life threatening.
The former premier needed hospitalisation for controlling his diabetes and his hypertension as well as for preventing damage to his heart and further deterioration of his 3rd stage chronic kidney disease, this by itself is sufficient to establish that the continued incarceration of the petitioner in jail is inevitably detrimental to his life, he submitted.
The division bench committed a jurisdictional error in misreading the record and thereby basing its judgement on an erroneous assumption that the petitioner was receiving 'best possible medical treatment' in the hospital, while the fact of the matter is that, as per the medical reports submitted, the petitioner's treatment has not yet been started.
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