ISLAMABAD – The Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared the announcement of conducting former Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s prison trial in the cipher matter unconstitutional and illegal on Tuesday.
The notification was issued by the government on August 29th.
The ruling was reserved earlier in the day by an IHC division bench comprised of Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Riffat Imtiaz on the PTI chief’s intra-court appeal against his prison trial.
The IHC stayed the PTI chairman’s sentence in the Toshakhana case on August 29, while a special court established under the Official Secrets Act asked the jail officials to put the PTI chairman in “judicial lockup” in the cipher case.
The court ruled that the notice issued by the law ministry on November 13 about the PTI chief’s prison trial was no longer valid.
The IHC prolonged the stay granted against the trial court proceedings by one day on Monday. The court heard arguments on the procedure for appointing a judge as well as the prison trial.
Salman Akram Raja, counsel representing the PTI head, contended before the division court that the mechanism used to appoint the judge was incorrect.