The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has declared the trial proceedings of Imran Khan conducted in jail in the cipher case to be null and void. This means that the indictments of Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the cipher case on October 23 have also been declared null and void. The trial for this case will now be conducted again in open court.
This decision was made on an intra-court appeal filed by Imran Khan against a single-member bench’s decision approving his jail trial in the cipher case. The verdict was issued by an IHC division bench, comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz, who declared Imran’s intra-court appeal maintainable.
The court declared that the notifications issued by the law ministry regarding Imran’s jail trial on August 29, September 12, September 25, October 3, October 13, November 13, and November 15 were all “without lawful authority and no legal effect”. The court also stated that the proceedings and the trial conducted in jail premises from August 29 in a manner that cannot be termed as an open trial stand vitiated.
The cipher case pertains to a diplomatic document that the Federal Investigation Agency’s charge sheet alleges was never returned by Imran. The former premier and his aide Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is also behind bars, were indicted in the case on October 23.
During the hearing, Imran’s lawyer Advocate Salman Akram Raja argued that the procedures followed for initiating the trial in jail were incomplete and the federal cabinet’s approval for the same only came when the intra-court appeal was underway. The Attorney General for Pakistan, Mansoor Usman Awan, highlighted that Imran’s family members were allowed to attend the proceedings and that the jail trial against Imran was being conducted due to security reasons.
The bench reserved the verdict, with Justice Aurangzeb saying that a detailed order would be issued at a later time.