World News | Pak Election Commission Directed to File Reply to Imran Khan's Petition by Next Week
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. A Pakistani high court has directed the country's election commission to submit a reply by next week to a petition by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan challenging his jail trial in a contempt case by the top electoral watchdog.
Lahore, Jan 30 (PTI) A Pakistani high court has directed the country's election commission to submit a reply by next week to a petition by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan challenging his jail trial in a contempt case by the top electoral watchdog.
In 2022, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) initiated contempt proceedings against 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician Khan for allegedly using ‘intemperate language' against the chief election commissioner and the electoral watchdog.
A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) headed by Justice Aalia Neelum on Monday allowed the ECP to submit a reply to the petition by next week.
In his petition, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party supremo Khan contended that the ECP in November 2023 had passed the order to conduct the trial at the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on account of unspecified security concerns.
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He said that the election commission failed to appreciate that a jail trial would violate several fundamental rights of the petitioner and added that the ECP incorrectly held that it could order a trial in secret in jail.
Last week, the LHC turned down a request by the former prime minister seeking immediate suspension of his jail trial in a contempt case instituted by the ECP against him.
Khan has been incarcerated at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi since August last year in several cases.
Earlier in the day, a special court set up under the Official Secrets Act handed down a 10-year jail term to Khan and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi for leaking state secrets.
The cipher case pertains to a piece of paper, purported to be a diplomatic cable -- the cipher -- that Khan had waved at a public rally on March 27, 2022, and naming the US, had claimed that it was ‘evidence' of an “international conspiracy” to topple his government.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)