ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, Tuesday, moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against issuance of his arrest warrants in Toshakhana case.
A single bench of Chief Justice Aamer Farooq will hear the petition today (Wednesday), filed by advocate Khawaja Haris Ahmed and Barrister Gohar Ali Khan.
They submitted that the chairman PTI could not appear before the trial court on 13.03.2023 due to security concerns.
However, they also said that two applications were filed on his behalf, one praying for dismissal of the complaint as having been filed without authorisation and being barred by time, and the other for exemption from appearance.
They added that at the hearing the application for dismissal of complaint as having been incompetently made/ filed and being barred by time was argued at considerable length, and it was shown from the record that the purported claim of respondent that he was authorised by ECP to make the complaint, whether on so-called basis of “authorisation letter” annexed with the complaint, or on basis of the ECP’s Order, was absolutely false as the content of the letter as well as the ECP, Order did not tantamount to delegation of power to make the complaint in terms of section 6 of the Election Act, 2017.
“As such, the entire proceedings before the trial judge, culminating in the issuance of warrants of arrest, were void ab initio, and therefore non-est in the eye of law. Similarly, the complaint on face of record was barred by time.
It was also submitted that the order dated 07.03.2023 passed by this Court was not an impediment to the stand taken on behalf of the petitioner that before re-issuance of the warrants of arrest, the matter regarding competency of the complaint and process initiated on its filing be adjudicated upon, as in doing so, warrant of arrest earlier issued remains alive, only before its re-issuance question whether proceedings culminating in its issuance are illegal and void ab initio is to be determined,” stated the petition.
It further said that since record clearly shows that complaint is made sans due authorisation/ delegation, and has been filed beyond the period specified in section 137(4) of the Act, the trial judge may first decide these partly legal questions going to the very root of the matter, before reissuing the warrants of arrest.
It contended that it is pertinent to note that in response to the submissions made by the petitioner’s counsel, the counsel for ECP could not rebut the legal objections to very maintainability of the complaint, rather it stood demonstrated during the course of hearing that there is no delegation of power by ECP to the purported complainant to make the complaint.
The petition said, “Yet, strangely enough, the learned trial Judge has, through his order, represented as if only arguments on the Exemption Application were addressed, while not a single argument addressed in support of the Main Application for dismissal of Complaint is noted therein or ever represented to have been so submitted, which representations are totally against what was actually submitted in the Court by way of arguments in the case.
It maintained that the order 13.03.2023 is illegal and without proper authority besides being, it is submitted with respect and tainted in the eye of the law.
Therefore, Khan prayed to the court that it may very graciously set aside the impugned order dated 13.03.2023 passed by the Zafar Iqbal, learned Additional District and Sessions Judge, Islamabad West. He further prayed that pending the final decision of the instant revision petition, the operation of the impugned order may very kindly be suspended.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023