Former PM Imran Khan writes to Pakistan chief justice against biased high court

Islamabad, Sep 18 (PTI) Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan has written to the chief justice highlighting his grievances against the alleged bias of a high court, the rigging of 2024 elections and other issues, a media report said Thursday.

The letter was delivered to Chief Justice Yahya Afridi by lawmaker Latif Khosa of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party at the Supreme Court.

Dawn newspaper reported that the letter, dated September 16, urged CJ Afridi to direct the Islamabad High Court to fix some “critical petitions” that had been “hanging in the doldrums” for hearing.

Khan also wrote about the allegedly “questionable conduct” of the Islamabad High Court under its chief justice, “a byproduct of the 26th Amendment,” Justice Sarfaraz Dogar, who, he claimed “deliberately refuses” to fix his Al-Qadir trust petitions and the Toshakhana revision petitions.

“He (Dogar) has fully abandoned impartiality and reduced Islamabad High Court to a facilitator of unjust and tyrannical campaign against me and those associated with me,” Khan alleged.

The 72-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician has been in jail for over two years in multiple cases. He is currently lodged in the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi. His wife Bushra Bibi also joined him in the prison after the duo was convicted in the Al-Qadir Trust cases earlier this year.

Khan also claimed that his PTI secured a “landslide victory” in last year’s general elections “despite the brutal tactics, the suppression of all bold voices, despite my own imprisonment.” “Yet, the mandate of the people was stolen overnight, turning democracy into [a] farce and the Constitution into a casualty. The same has been sanctioned and rubber-stamped by the leaked report of Commonwealth 2024,” he wrote.

Although the Commonwealth Observer Group’s (COG) report on Pakistan has yet to be officially released, a news outlet had claimed that the group had “buried their report” after finding those polls to be riddled with problems.

Khan further said that “the so-called 26th Constitutional Amendment has been used as a tool to sanctify this electoral dacoity, while petitions challenging it lie unheard in your court.” CJ Afridi had ignored a decision made last year by a committee to bring challenges to the 26th Amendment before the full apex court, according to the minutes of the communication exchange between the chief justice and two senior SC judges.

Khan also highlighted the conditions he has been kept in inside jail, according to Dawn.

Khosa told the media after delivering the letter that the CJ had sought Khan’s complaints regarding the conditions in jail in writing and assured that his grievances would be addressed within 24 hours. PTI SH NPK NPK