{"id":3249,"date":"2023-09-12T07:50:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T07:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/ihc-reserves-verdict-on-plea-challenging-imrans-attock-jail-trial-in-cipher-case\/"},"modified":"2023-09-12T07:50:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T07:50:29","slug":"ihc-reserves-verdict-on-plea-challenging-imrans-attock-jail-trial-in-cipher-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/ihc-reserves-verdict-on-plea-challenging-imrans-attock-jail-trial-in-cipher-case\/","title":{"rendered":"IHC reserves verdict on plea challenging Imran\u2019s Attock jail trial in cipher case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a petition filed by PTI Chairman Imran Khan challenging the decision to conduct the trial in the cipher case at Attock jail.<\/p>\n

The PTI chief was sent to jail on August 5 after he was convicted<\/a> in the Toshakhana case. On August 29, the IHC had suspended<\/a> his sentence. However, a special court had directed Attock jail authorities to keep him in \u201cjudicial lockup\u201d in connection with the cipher case.<\/p>\n

Last month, the law ministry had designated<\/a> Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain as the judge of the special court to try suspects under the Official Secrets Act.<\/p>\n

The special court had subsequently extended<\/a> Imran\u2019s judicial remand till Sep 13 (tomorrow) during a hearing held at Attock jail.<\/p>\n

On August 30, Imran had approached<\/a> the IHC against the appointment of Judge Zulqarnain to the special court and also raised objections to the law ministry\u2019s notification allowing the trial to be heard in prison.<\/p>\n

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq presided over today\u2019s hearing during which lawyer Sher Afzal Marwat appeared on behalf of the PTI chief.<\/p>\n

Marwat read out the notification issued by the law ministry. He then proceeded to question the laws under which the ministry had allowed for the trial to be shifted to Attock jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can a trial be transferred from Islamabad to Punjab?\u201d the lawyer asked. He stated that only the Supreme Court could transfer a trial from one province to another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chief commissioner or the interior secretary do not have the authority to transfer a trial to another province,\u201d he said, adding that the move to shift the hearing of the case to Attock jail was prompted by \u201cmalice\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that the purpose of the notification issued for changing the venue of the hearing was to keep Imran in Attock jail. \u201cSo far, it has not been revealed under which laws this notification was issued,\u201d Marwat said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly the Supreme Court has the authority to transfer the trial from Islamabad to another province,\u201d he reiterated. He stated that Islamabad was an autonomous territory and did not come under the jurisdiction of any province.<\/p>\n

He said that the process for changing the venue of a hearing was clearly stated in the law. He said that the consent of the relevant judge was also required to do so.<\/p>\n

Marwat said that after the IHC suspended<\/a> Imran\u2019s three-year sentence in the Toshakhana case, the ex-premier could not have been kept in Attock jail. He stated that there was no reason to keep the PTI chairman incarcerated at Attock jail, adding that Imran had been granted bail in the Toshakhana case.<\/p>\n

Additional Attorney General (AAG) Munawar Iqbal Duggal then came to the rostrum, and said that the notification concerning the trial at Attock jail was a one-time thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the notification was for one time, their (PTI\u2019s) petition has become infructuous,\u201d he said. He also highlighted that according to the rules of business, the law ministry had the authority to issue the notification.<\/p>\n

He said that the court was transferred to Attock Jail for the hearing on August 30. \u201cThe law ministry issued the notification and it has the authority (to do so),\u201d he said. He added that the ministry had also issued the no-objection certificate (NOC) that there were no objections to doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cA jail trial is not something that doesn\u2019t happen,\u201d the IHC CJ remarked at one point. Justice Farooq then asked about the process for conducting a trial in jail.<\/p>\n

At this, Prosecutor Zulfiqar Abbas Naqvi said that the trial of the cipher case was not currently ongoing. He stated that the ministry had issued the notification in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n

After hearing the arguments, Justice Farooq reserved the verdict in the case.<\/p>\n

The petition<\/h2>\n

The petition said that the special court judge lacked the essential qualifications needed for the role, citing the qualifications of an ATC judge had been defined under Section 13(2) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, reducing the rank and status of learned administrative judge of the ATC, Islam\u00adabad, to the status of a magistrate is a mockery of the law and void-ab-initio,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

It went on to state that an ATC judge was defined under Sections 13 (establishment of ATC) and 14 (composition and appointment of presiding officers of ATCs) of the ATA, according to which, the presiding judge of an ATC, \u201cunder no stretch of imagination, could be a magistrate\u201d.<\/p>\n

The petition further said that the appointment was contrary to the law and \u201cvoid-ab-initio\u201d as the special court judge was not a magistrate under section 4(m-a) of the CrPC, which defines a magistrate.<\/p>\n

Giving details of the grounds against moving of the special court to the Attock jail, the plea said the production order issued by the judge was a \u201cjudicial order, which has neither been recalled nor reviewed\u201d by the court concerned.<\/p>\n

It added that the respo\u00adn\u00addents were not vested with any such powers under Section 9(2) (court of session) of the CrPC. Citing the \u201csecurity concerns\u201d co\u00adn\u00adveyed by the interior ministry, the petition arg\u00adued that the \u201crespondents never considered allowing Mr Khan to appear before any Islamabad court via the video link when he himself expressed similar concerns\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe claim in the name of security is farce, false and misguiding,\u201d it said, while terming the notification bereft of reasoning and logic.<\/p>\n

The petition further said that the cipher case was at its pre-trial stage, at which the venue of the trial could not be changed. It added that the law ministry had no authority to extend its jurisdiction to Punjab and determine a venue that does not lie within the federal government\u2019s administrative control.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a petition filed by PTI Chairman Imran Khan challenging the decision to conduct the trial in the cipher case at Attock jail. The PTI chief was sent to jail on August 5 after he was convicted in the Toshakhana case. On August 29, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/_img\/social-default.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}