LAHORE (Dunya News) – The Lahore High Court on Thursday declared the physical remand of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan in 12 cases registered against him under May 9 mayhem pretext null and void.
A division bench headed by Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh and including Justice Anwar-ul-Haq heard pleas for the remand.
The bench reserved its judgement after hearing arguments of PTI counsel Advocate Salman Safdar and Punjab prosecutor general.
Arguing before the bench, Advocate Safdar said that for physical remand, it is necessary to present the accused in person. There is no such compulsion that the accused cannot be produced before the court. It is the responsibility of the government to provide him security.
The government is not producing Imran Khan before the court on a flimsy grounds of security risk and seeking his physical remand.
Earlier, Advocate Safdar argued that Imran Khan has already been granted bail in the case the state prosecutor referred to. He argued that police did not move in nine cases for 425 days and in three cases they kept mum for 170 days.
Later, the Punjab prosecutor general requested the bench to reject the requests of the former prime minister. He argued that police have to recover mobile phones from which tweets were made to incite violence.
Justice Anwar-ul-Haq observed that the police cannot take the petitioner out of jail, how the material could be recovered.
Later, the court adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes.
On the resumption of the hearing after a break, the prosecutor general presented the details of the social media accounts of the founder PTI before the court.
He read tweets and said that a specific narrative was created. Justice Anwar-ul-Haq said more serious threats are being hurled at judges these days than the tweets you read.
The prosecutor general repeated his assertion and the justice rejected him again. If the petitioner gave a call for protest, how would it be a crime, he questioned the state official.
Had he led the attacks, then it would have been a crime, Justice Anwar-ul-Haq observed.
Justice Shaikh said that the judge of the anti-terrorism court should have seen whether the remand was justified or not.
The prosecutor general submitted that the crime of sedition is prosecuted under Section 121. Justice Shaikh said that this section has been struck down by the Lahore High Court.
On this, the prosecutor general said that the officer of the security branch has given a statement that Imran Khan had issued instructions that if the Rangers or the army arrested him, the country should be shut down and GHQ attacked.
He requested the bench again to reject petitioner’s application.
However, the court announced the reserved judgement rejected the prosecutions plea for remand.