VIDEO-LINK APPEARANCE IN HEARINGS.
ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday issued notices to the Ministry of Law and other respondents in a petition filed by former premier and Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan seeking permission for his video-link appearance in court.
A single bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq conducted hearing of Imran Khan’s petition. Earlier, the Registrar’s Office had raised three objections to the PTI chief’s petition, stating that Imran Khan’s request is vague while another objection was raised about how could a video-link plea be filed in the high court. The office also raised an objection to the maintainability of the video link before being heard by the court concerned. During the hearing, Justice Aamer removed the objections and directed the office to fix the case for regular hearing. After hearing arguments of petitioner’s counsels, the IHC bench issued notices to respondents including Ministry of Law and deferred proceedings till March 15. In this matter, Chairman PTI had moved the petition through Advocate Faisal Fareed Chaudhry and adopted the stance that the PTI chairman had security threats during his appearance in the court.
The former premier requested tight security for his appearance before IHC. He informed the court that at present, till the last count, 74 cases stand registered against the petitioner in various parts of the country and these cases were part of the misuse of authority to eliminate him from the political process and include baseless charges of sedition and terrorism.
He added that in view of the security threat to the petitioner and others and the disruption that court appearances by the petitioner are likely to cause, the petitioner may be allowed to participate in the court bearings within the jurisdiction of the court through a video link. He further said that such appearance through video link would enable the petitioner and the courts to carry out the due process of adjudication without the threat of an untoward incident.