Peshawar - The Islamabad high Court (IhC) on Thursday deferred the hearing in chairman pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (pTI) Imran Khan’s plea to withdraw his petition challenging the election Commission of pakistan’s (eCp) verdict in the Toshakhana reference. a single bench of the IhC comprising Chief Justice of IhC Justice aamer Farooq conducted hearing of a petition filed by PTI chairman Imran Khan through his counsel Barrister ali Zafar. During the hearing, pTI chief’s counsel informed the court that the matter is already pending before the Lahore high Court (LhC) so he wanted to withdraw the petition. Justice aamer remarked that the other side has some objections, and the court will listen to that first. Then, he directed to club the miscellaneous application of pTI’s chief with his main case. he said that the court would hear the petitions together as other respondents would also be in attendance on next hearing. Later, the IhC bench adjourned the hearing in this case till January 25 for further proceedings. Earlier, the PTI chief filed an application to withdraw his petition from the Islamabad high Court (IhC) due to his pending petition in the Lahore high Court (LhC) against the Toshakhana (gift depository) reference decision. In, the miscellaneous application, he adopted the stance that the LhC had constituted a full bench on the petition against the eCp’s Toshakhana decision. It said that the eCp’s October 21 verdict had been challenged in the LhC along with the eCp’s move to strip Imran of party chairmanship. The application said that the LhC full bench would examine all the legal aspects related to both the petitions. previously, Khan’s counsel Barrister ali Zafar made the submission that it is bizarre that the election Commission of Pakistan ECP) disqualified him for the assets that he legally purchased and lawfully sold. The counsel adopted the stance before the bench that Imran was elected as MNa from Na-95 Mianwali in July 2018 but, through an illegal order of election Commission of pakistan (eCp) dated 21/10/2022, ECP disqualified him from this seat under Article 63(1)(p) of the Constitution. The decision of the speaker to send the reference and order of eCp is unconstitutional and void ab initio, he submitted. he adopted the stance that the speaker without any document or evidence whatsoever, in a mechanical manner, without any reasoning and total lack of application of mind, and contrary to the law and the Constitution; accepted the application filed by a few MNAs and filed a reference before the ECP asking ECP to disqualify Imran Khan under article 62(1)(f). he submitted that acting malafide in law, ECP also accepted the reference and disqualified Imran Khan from the seat. Barrister Zafar contended that since the reference had been filed by the Speaker under Article 63(2) of the Constitution under which it was necessary that the ground as provided in article 63(1) must exist at the time of the decision before the speaker or the eCp. however, he pointed out that in this case no issue under article 63(1) was involved or existed at the time of the speaker’s decision or even when eCp was called upon to answer the question raised in the reference. On this ground also, he argued that the only answer that eCp could give to the question raised by the Speaker was that no disqualification existed under article 63(1) and hence the reference should have been dismissed on this ground alone. Barrister Zafar told the court that eCp illegally ignored all these documents and evidence. he pointed out that this is a strange case in which assets were legally purchased and legally sold and yet eCp has disqualified Imran Khan. He referred to many judgements of the superior Courts in which it was held that all misdeclarations are not a cause for disqualification but it has to be seen whether the declaration was for any ulterior or dishonest motive. Barrister Zafar argued that since Imran Khan had purchased the assets legally, in accordance with the rules, there was no reason for him not to mention the gifts in his asset statement and, hence, the assumption by eCp that this was dishonestly done is totally incorrect.
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