The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday reserved its verdict on the admissibility of a petition seeking the disqualification of PTI Chairman Imran Khan for concealing his alleged daughter, Tyrian White from his election papers.
\nLast year, petitioner Muhammad Sajid had filed a plea in the IHC claiming that although Imran made arrangements for Tyrian White\u2019s upkeep in the United Kingdom, he did not disclose it in nomination papers and affidavits filed by him for contesting elections.
\nSubmitting his response to the IHC, the former premier on Feb 1 had requested the court to dismiss the petition, saying that it was \u201cnot maintainable\u201d on legal grounds as he was no longer a lawmaker.
\nSubsequently, the IHC had decided to constitute a larger bench to hear the petition. On Feb 9, it had emphasised that arguments on the plea\u2019s admissibility were highly important.
\nThe IHC was to initially decide on the petition\u2019s maintainability on March 21 but had adjourned the hearing till today, directing Imran\u2019s counsel to conclude his arguments on its maintainability.
\nA three-member larger bench \u2014 consisting of IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, Just\u00adice Mohsin Akhtar Kaya\u00ad\u00adni and Jus\u00adtice Arbab Muhammad Tahir \u2014 presided over the hearing today.
\nAdvocate Hamid Ali Shah was present as the petitioner\u2019s counsel while Advocate Salman Akram Raja and Advocate Abuzar Salman were present as Imran\u2019s representatives.
\nAdvocates Saad Hasan and Zegham Anees were present as the Election Commission of Pakistan\u2019s lawyers.
\nThe hearing
\nAt the outset of the hearing, Justice Farooq said: \u201cTill now, according to the record, Imran Khan has neither denied nor accepted anything. Till now, the court is hearing this petition regarding its admissibility.\u201d
\nAddressing Shah, the petitioner\u2019s counsel, Justice Farooq said: \u201cYou tell us about the basic points; is Tyrian under the guardianship of Imran Khan or not? Is Imran Khan a public office holder now or not?
\n\u201cIf there is something new in response to the points [raised by Imran\u2019s lawyer] Salman Akram Raja, tell us that. Till now, neither Imran Khan\u2019s admission nor rebuttal is on record.\u201d
\nTo this, Advocate Shah said: \u201cImran Khan did not disclose his daughter\u2019s name in the affidavit given to the election commission.\u201d
\nHe said that according to the Holders of Public Exchequer (Accountability) Act 2015, Imran cannot remain as party head.
\nThe lawyer argued: \u201cImran Khan did not respond to the facts mentioned in the petition, which makes them accepted [by default].\u201d
\nHere, the IHC chief justice observed that the court was hearing the case based on the petition\u2019s admissibility.
\nAdvocate Shah then proceeded to read out the affidavit submitted by Imran. He said: \u201cImran Khan mentioned Bushra Bibi, Kassem Khan and Suleman Khan in the affidavit. He said that the two sons live with their mother and are not under his financial guardianship.
\nTyrian has not yet been married [so] she comes under [Imran\u2019s] guardianship according to Islamic law, he argued.
\nAdvocate Shah said that the petitioner is a Pakistani citizen like other citizens. \u201cEven if the petition is against a party head, it is admissible,\u201d he added.
\nThe counsel asserted: \u201cIf someone submits a false affidavit, he is disqualified under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution, according to [previous] court verdicts.\u201d
\nAt this point during the hearing, the court raised the question: \u201cIf the court determines that this affidavit was false, what will happen then?\u201d
\nTo this, the petitioner\u2019s counsel responded that person would then be \u201cdisqualified from becoming a member of an assembly and remaining the party head\u201d.
\nUpon the completion of Advocate Shah\u2019s arguments, Justice Farooq said to the ECP lawyer: \u201cWe had asked you to submit documents.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat is the election commission\u2019s stance on this?\u201d the court asked the ECP lawyer, who then replied that \u201cin the past, such petitions were dismissed on the basis of lack of evidence\u201d.
\nHere, the IHC chief justice reiterated that the court had heard the petition \u201conly to the extent of it being maintainable\u201d and it would only be taken forward if found to be maintainable otherwise be dismissed.
\nJustice Farooq said: \u201cWhy not fine the election commission heavily for this behaviour?\u201d The ECP lawyer said: \u201cWe only wanted to inform [the court] that we have dismissed cases based on lack of evidence.\u201d
\nThe IHC chief justice said that first the court would \u201cdecide whether this case is maintainable or not\u201d and reserved its verdict on the matter of the plea\u2019s admissibility.
\nThe petition
\nSajid, the petitioner, had alleged that the PTI chairman did not marry Sita White because her \u201cracist father categorically told the respondent (Imran) that if he married Sita, they would not get a penny of his money\u201d.
\n\u201cOnly thereafter, he met Jemima, another rich lady, and in a very short time married her.\u201d
\nThe petition, titled \u201cImran versus Imran \u2014 the untold story\u201d, recalled the circumstances in which the custody of Tyrian Jade was given to Jemima.
\nIt stated that Ana-Lusia White, in her will of Feb 27, 2004, had nominated Jemima Khan as guardian of her daughter Tyrian Jade Khan-White. Sita White died that year on May 13.
\nThe petition went on to state: \u201cJemima Goldsmith had been the spouse of Imran Khan (1995-2004).
\n\u201cThe concealed facts stood confirmed by a judgement of paternity rendered by a superior court in California in favour of Sita White where it was held that the respondent (Imran Khan) was the father of Tyrian Jade.\u201d
\nImran Khan initially joined the proceedings through his attorney, but defaulted after he was asked to undergo a blood test, it added.
\nHowever, he later submitted a declaration to a court of guardianship when Caroline White, Sita\u2019s sister, asked the court that she be appointed Tyrian\u2019s guardian, the petition alleged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday reserved its verdict on the admissibility of a petition seeking the disqualification of PTI Chairman Imran Khan for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5680,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}