LAHORE/ISLAMABAD    -     The Lahore High Court (LHC) Tuesday declined a request for early hearing of a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-In­saf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan challenging registration of over 100 cases registered against him across country.

The court held that the peti­tion had already been fixed for May 2. Therefore, it did not re­quire early hearing.

However, the court stopped relevant quarters from harass­ing the PTI chief and directed them to ensure that Imran Khan was treated as per law.

A five-member bench headed by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi heard the civil miscellaneous applica­tion filed by the PTI chief for ear­ly hearing of his pending petition and possible police operation at his residence during Eid holidays.

The bench, after hearing de­tailed arguments of Imran Khan's counsel and a law officer, reserved the decision and then announced it after some time. The PTI chief also remained present during the proceedings.

Meanwhile, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Tuesday extended interim bail to Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan in eight cases registered against him till May 3. A two-mem­ber bench of the IHC com­prising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Au­rangzeb conducted hearing of the bail petitions in dif­ferent cases including the judicial complex riot case. Besides extending Khan’s bail, the IHC bench also ac­cepted the former prime minister’s plea seeking ex­emption from his person­al appearance before the court for one day. The cases were registered against the PTI Chairman at Golra, Bara Kahu, Ramna, Khanna, and CTD police stations after the police accused the PTI chief and party workers of being involved in attacking police and creating unrest outside the FJC in Islamabad during the hearing of the Toshakha­na case on March 18. During the hearing, the IHC CJ made it clear that Imran’s interim bail in all the cases will be cancelled if he did not ap­pear before the court on May 3. PTI lawyer Faisal Chaudhry, the additional at­torney general, and the ad­vocate general Islamabad appeared before the bench. Khan’s lawyer informed the court that his client had ap­peared in the Lahore High Court (LHC) yesterday. He added that his client can­not appear in this court due to security reasons. Justice Aamer questoined that if all eight cases before this court were filed against Imran and did the cases include provisions of terrorism? Advocate Faisal replied that these eight cases per­tained to the judicial com­plex issue and they have re­quested to appear through a video link. At this, the IHC CJ remarked that modern techniques should be used but in accordance with the law. He added that this court has not given any ex­traordinary relief to Imran Khan so that a wrong prece­dent is not set.