ISLAMABAD – The federal government on Friday contested the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) ruling that deemed its notification for the jail trial of former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan in the cipher case null and void.
In November of the previous year, the IHC invalidated the notification regarding the jail trial of PTI founder Imran Khan in the cipher case, where he faced charges related to leaking state secrets.
An IHC division bench, consisting of Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz, delivered the verdict on November 21, 2023, in response to Imran Khan’s intra-court appeal against a single-member bench’s decision approving his jail trial in the cipher case under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
In the petition filed today in the Supreme Court, the federal government urged the SC to overturn the IHC decision, arguing that the high court did not properly evaluate the facts of the case. The government contended that the IHC lacked the authority to declare the special court formed for the cipher trial of the former premier as invalid.
The division bench, in allowing Khan’s intra-court appeal, declared the law ministry’s notification “to be without lawful authority and no legal effect.”
The IHC, in a three-page short order, stated that a jail trial could be conducted in “exceptional circumstances” if conducive to justice, following the procedure provided by law.
The court also declared that the November 15 notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice, after the caretaker cabinet’s approval of the jail trial, “cannot be given retrospective effect.”
