Plea seeking quashment of FIR against PTI chief rejected

QUETTA:

The Balochistan High Court (BHC) dismissed a petition on Thursday that sought to quash the FIR against former Prime Minister Imran Khan in relation to the murder of senior lawyer Abdul Razzaq Shar Advocate.

The constitutional petition was filed by Syed Iqbal Shah Advocate and other lawyers, requesting the cancellation of the FIR against the former premier in connection with the killing of Abdul Razzaq Shar.

Abdul Razzaq Shar Advocate was fatally shot in an incident on Quetta’s Airport Road on June 6. Shar had previously filed a petition seeking the registration of a treason case against Imran Khan for dissolving the parliament.

Following the incident, Siraj Ahmed Advocate, the son of Razzaq Shar Advocate, nominated Imran Khan as a suspect in his father’s murder case.

A division bench of the BHC, comprising Chief Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Muhammad Amir Rana, dismissed the petition. The lawyers had argued in their plea that Imran Khan had no involvement in the senior lawyer’s murder, citing his presence at the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and being interrogated by a joint interrogation team (JIT) during the time of the incident.

The court noted that the FIR against Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, registered at the Jameel Shaheed Police Station Killi Almas, cannot be quashed without a proper investigation. The bench further emphasized that the investigation was still ongoing and could not be impeded at this stage, either under Article 199 of the Constitution or under Section 561-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Consequently, the petition was dismissed by the bench, which ordered that the investigation should continue accordingly.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2023.