CB to take up Imran's plea against Army Act
The Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court would take up a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan against the amendments to the Official Secrets Act (OSA) and the Army Act on February 7, according to the apex court on Friday.
A six-member Constitutional Bench, led by Justice Aminuddin Khan, will hear the petition, filed by Imran under Clause 3 of Article 184 of the Constitution in September 2023 through his lawyer, Advocate Shoaib Shaheen.
The petition, made the president, the Federation and the National Assembly parties. It requested the Supreme Court to declare the Official Secrets Amendment Act and the Army Amendment Act as null and void and suspend these acts until the final decision of the petition.
The PTI founder took the plea that the president had clarified on social media that he did not approve both these laws. The petition further stated that it would be unconstitutional to give the agencies power under the OSA to enter and search any house without a warrant,
Separately, Imran complained to the apex court on Thursday that none of the several petitions, filed by him and his party, regarding violations of human rights and election laws, had been taken up in the past 18 months.
In a letter addressed to Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Aminuddin Khan, the PTI founder also slammed the government for enacting laws to specifically target his party, according to an Express News report.
In his letter, Imran criticised the judiciary for failing to provide justice despite repeated petitions against election fraud and the ongoing human rights violations over the past 18 months. He claimed that 10,000 PTI supporters were arrested between November 24 and 27 last year in frivolous cases.
He claimed that PTI workers were subjected to forced disappearances, injuries, and extrajudicial killings, particularly around November 26, 2024. The letter alleged that even hospital records were sealed to manipulate facts.
The PTI founder attached a list of 42 party workers with the letter, whom he claimed, were injured or killed during the crackdown in Islamabad on November 26 aimed at dispersing protesters from the capital's Red Zone. Besides he also listed 75 people, who, he claimed had been disappeared.
In the letter, the PTI founder further claimed that he was kept in "solitary confinement" from October 3 to 25, 2024, and subjected to "degrading treatment". He also said that his meetings with his family and legal team were banned under the pretext of security.
Imran said that several of his party leaders, including Mahmudur Rashid, Ijaz Chaudhry, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Omer Sarfraz Cheema and Shah Mehmood Qureshi had been in jail for a long period. He also criticised the military trial of over 100 PTI supporters over May 9, 2023 violence.
The letter also criticised the alleged censorship of content favouring the PTI on the social and the mainstream media and termed it a violation of fundamental rights enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution.
The PTI founder also mentioned in his letter the alleged rigging in last year's general elections and said that the 26th Constitutional Amendment was brought to "undermine the judiciary". He asked the chief justice to "exercise his powers to end what he called the "brutality by the state".