Jail trial in Toshakhana, Al-Qadir trust cases: IHC issues notices to NAB in response to IK’s plea

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC), Thursday, issued notices to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s petition challenging his jail trial in Toshakhana and Al-Qadir trust case.

A division bench of IHC comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir, on Thursday, heard Imran’s petitions against his jail trial notification in Toshkhana and Al-Qadir cases. He filed the petitions through his counsel Sardar Latif Khosa advocate and cited the NAB chairman and others as respondents in the case.

The petition stated that the notifications of jail trials in the cases, issued on November 14 and 28 respectively, were unlawful and malicious. Imran prayed to the court that the jail trial notifications be nullified and urged the court to issue a stay order to halt the proceedings.

The bench issued notice to the NAB and the secretary interior after declaring his pleas “admissible”. The court also sought a reply from the respondents by January 22 besides directing to fix the next hearing on Monday before the available bench.

The petitioner Imran impugned the notification dated 28.11.2023 issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice, according to which, the federal government had accorded approval that the “Accountability Court concerned” shall sit and conduct trial of the petitioner and others in Central Prison, Adiala, Rawalpindi with reference to the case regarding misuse of authority and misappropriation/illegal sale of gifted State assets, etc under Section 16(b) of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 (“NAO”).

Section 16(b) of the NAO reads thus: “The Court shall sit at such place or places as the Federal Government may, by order specify in this behalf.”

The petitioner drew the attention of the court to the judgment passed by the Division Bench of this Court in intra-court appeal No367/2023 and submitted that at no stage prior to the issuance of the impugned notification was any judicial order passed by the Accountability Court requiring the trial against the petitioner to be conducted in jail.

He further submitted that since Reference No20/2023 was put in court after scrutiny by the Registrar of the Accountability Court on 20.12.2023, the question of any judicial order having been passed by the Accountability Court requiring the trial against the petitioner to be conducted in jail prior to the issuance of the impugned notification does not arise; that the requirements of Section 352 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, read with Rule 3 in Part-I of Chapter-I in Volume-III of the Rules and Orders of the Lahore High Court had not been fulfilled prior to the issuance of the impugned notification; and that the process adopted for the issuance of the impugned notification suffers from procedural irregularities which are liable to be judicially reviewed by this Court.

The petitioner further submitted that the presiding officer of the Accountability Court is proceeding with the trial with unprecedented haste; that the trial is being conducted on a day-to-day basis without any break; that till date out of the 20 prosecution witnesses, the examination-in-chief of 11 witnesses has been recorded and so has the cross-examination of three witnesses; and that the charge against the petitioner was framed on 09.01.2024 and the recording of evidence of so many witnesses in just six working days bespeaks of the presiding officer’s intention to decide the case by a certain targeted date.

He also submitted that ever since 20.12.2023, the presiding officer has not dealt with any other case pending before Accountability Court-I but just the reference against the petitioner.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024