Pak election commission directed to file reply to Imran Khan's petition by next week

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.

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.