- Three-member bench to hear pleas on August 18.
- Registrar’s Office issues notices to all concerned parties.
- PTI rejected talks with govt at PM House or Speaker’s Office.
The Supreme Court on Thursday fixed pleas, seeking medical treatment and meetings with incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan, for hearing on August 18.
A three-member bench, headed by Justice Shahid Waheed and comprising Justice Naeem Afghan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, will hear the pleas.
The Registrar’s Office has issued notices to all relevant parties and their counsels.
Khan, who has been in jail since August 2023, faces several cases ranging from corruption to terrorism, following his ouster from power through the opposition’s no-confidence motion in April 2022.
Earlier, the PTI had announced a long march aimed at the release of “in accordance with the Constitution and law”.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi while speaking on Geo News’ programme “Capital Talk” said that PTI’s leadership and the Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz-e-Ayeen-e-Pakistan (TTAP) alliance are on board with the September 27 long march to Islamabad.
Afridi said the date had been decided jointly by the party’s provincial and central leadership along with its allied group.
Afridi said the purpose of the PTI long march would not be Imran’s release but access to the party founder.
“All our political leadership, the provincial leadership of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf across all provinces, and central, and along with that the alliance too, Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz-e-Ayeen-e-Pakistan — yes, all of them are on board,” he said.
‘PTI ready to return to standing committees if Imran meeting arranged’
Opposition Leader in the Senate Allama Raja Nasir Abbas said that PTI could return to parliamentary standing committees if the government arranged a meeting with Imran, adding that if the government was serious about negotiations, it should facilitate such a meeting.
Speaking to journalists, Allama Nasir said the government deliberately created ambiguity about the PTI founder’s health, with the aim of creating divisions within the party.
He said he had met Imran on a court order before the 26th Constitutional Amendment and would stand by the PTI founder till his last breath. “I distinguish between PTI founder and the party — but I will never abandon him,” he said.
Raja Nasir said he knew why talks between the government and PTI had failed, revealing that the opposition had taken a complete negotiation plan to Imran at Adiala Jail, having first held a meeting at KP House before visiting the founder.
“We took certain proposals to the PTI founder,” he said.
He explained that PTI refused to hold talks at the Prime Minister’s House or the Speaker’s office because doing so would lend legal legitimacy to a government PTI did not recognise.
“We do not consider them legitimate,” he said.
However, he said PTI was ready to negotiate in the Constitution Room of Parliament House if the government was serious. “If the government wants parliament to survive, it should arrange a meeting with the PTI founder,” he added.
Raja Nasir said he agreed with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s diagnosis that the system had collapsed, but said the remedy proposed was illegal.
“Naqvi correctly identified the disease — but the medicine suggested is unlawful,” he said, adding that the country needed a truly representative government. He said the people wanted a government that genuinely represented them.
