ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday rejected Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s plea to stay the trial court’s proceedings in the Toshakhana case.
The former prime minister, who was the first to be ousted through a no-confidence vote in April last year, approached the Supreme Court after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) denied him relief.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had on October 21 last year disqualified the former prime minister for making “false statements and false declarations” under Article 63(1)(p) of the Constitution in the Toshakhana reference.
A trial court had then dismissed his plea challenging the maintainability of the reference in May this year.
Not only this, the court also indicted the PTI chief, who denied all allegations of misrepresentation of gifts.
This came after the PTI chief challenged the trial court’s decision before the IHC, which remanded the case to the trial court for re-examination within seven days.
On July 8, the trial court concluded that the ECP petition was maintainable and further action would be taken against the former prime minister who approached the Supreme Court for relief.
During today’s hearing, Justice Yahya Afridi of the two-member bench of the Supreme Court remarked that the Supreme Court will not interfere in the affairs of the trial court in the Toshakhana case.
PTI chief’s counsel Khawaja Haris told the court that several petitions related to the trial court’s jurisdiction and transfer of the Toshakhana case are pending in the High Court.
On this, Justice Afridi directed the IHC to hear Khan’s pending applications together.
He said that it is not the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear the petition when the relevant petitions are pending in the IHC.
The justice remarked that ‘jurisdiction of the court is a big issue, it should be decided first’.
It should be noted that four applications are pending in the IHC. One relates to the latest order of the trial court while in two petitions the PTI chief has challenged the jurisdiction of the trial court to hear the Toshakhana case. In another petition, he has sought transfer of the case.
