Imran Khan Toshakhana case: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan received a big setback on Monday after Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday rejected his plea to suspend the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP)'s decision of his disqualification in Toshakhana case.
The former prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan will have to go through a gruelling legal battle to regain his political turf in the wake of his disqualification from holding public office for five years in the Toshakhana case for hiding proceeds from the sale of gifts he received from foreign leaders, according to a media report. Khan on Friday lost membership of Parliament, as well as, barred from contesting elections for five years after the Election Commission of Pakistan, the top constitutional election body, found him guilty of hiding the proceeds from the sale of precious gifts which he got as the prime minister from different heads of states.
However, there is confusion about whether the five-year disqualification would apply only to the five years term of the current assembly, or whether the disqualification period would start from the date of the verdict by the ECP. The tenure of the current national assembly began in August 2018 and would be completed in 2023. Khan already tendered his resignation as a lawmaker in April but it was not accepted.
In this case, his disqualification would end with the expiry of the tenure of the assembly. In his recorded message issued after two back-to-back meetings of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party soon after the damning verdict, the 70-year-old cricketer-turned-politician rejected the charges and vowed to contest his disqualification legally and not through street protests.
Apparently, it sounds fine that Khan took the constitutional path, which is circuitous, and made take many weeks if not months before the legal process is completed. The former prime minister's appeal needs to go to the high court and then the supreme court. Dawn newspaper in a report about Khan’s upcoming legal battle said that his party had announced to challenge the disqualification before the Islamabad High Court (IHC), but Khan has to face another trial before a sessions judge as the ECP has forwarded a complaint against him for submitting false declarations about concealing the gifts.
According to a member of the party’s legal wing, since there were fears of such an adverse verdict from the ECP, a pre-emptive petition in this regard has already been drafted by Senator Syed Ali Zafar, the head of the party's legal team.
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