Pakistan's Chief Justice asked to schedule early hearings of Imran Khan’s cases

ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has petitioned the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa to promptly schedule the hearing of all cases involving former prime minister Imran Khan and to authorize their live broadcast, The Express Tribune reported on Wednesday. This comes a day after the Pakistan Supreme Court started broadcasting its live hearings.

According to The Express Tribune, the PTI spokesperson condemned the delay in Imran Khan’s bail application by the Islamabad High Court and expressed the need for the CJP to take immediate cognisance of the miscarriage of justice transpiring within the country and to ensure that the principles of justice were upheld in all subordinate courts. Earlier, a special court rejected the bail applications of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and the party's vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the cypher case, Geo News reported on Thursday.

Special court Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain heard the bail applications and reserved the verdict after PTI's counsels completed their arguments. Later, the judge announced the reserved verdict, rejecting the post-arrest bail pleas of the PTI leaders. Notably, the FIA booked PTI chief Khan and the party’s vice chairman Qureshi under the Official Secrets Act last month for allegedly misplacing and misusing classified documents for vested political interests, both leaders were arrested in connection with the investigation into the case and a special court was established under the Official Secrets Act to try the accused.

Earlier on Wednesday, the special court extended Imran and Qureshi's judicial remand till September 26 in the cypher case. The cypher controversy first emerged on March 27, 2022, when Imran Khan — just days before his ouster in April 2022 — brandished a letter, claiming that it was a cypher from a foreign nation, which mentioned that his government should be removed from power, according to Geo News.

He did not reveal the contents of the letter nor mention the name of the nation that had sent it. But a few days later, he named the US and alleged that Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Affairs Donald Lu had sought his removal.

The cypher was about former Pakistan ambassador to the US Asad Majeed's meeting with Lu. The former PM, claiming that he was reading contents from the cypher, said that "all will be forgiven for Pakistan if Imran Khan is removed from power".Then on March 31, the National Security Committee (NSC) took up the matter and decided to issue a "strong demarche" to the country for its "blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan".

Later, after his removal, then-prime minister Shehbaz Sharif convened another meeting of the NSC, which came to the conclusion that it had found no evidence of a foreign conspiracy in the cypher.

The cypher case against the former premier became serious after his principal secretary Azam Khan stated before a magistrate as well as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) that the former PM had used the US cypher for his "political gains" and to avert a vote of no-confidence against him, Geo News reported.