The Lahore registry of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) on Thursday struck down Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s appeal for defence in the Rs10 billion defamation suit filed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after the former accused the latter of offering bribe to him for remaining silent in the Panama Papers case.
Mr Khan's plea against binning his right to defence in the case by the trial court was heard by a three-member bench, headed by Justice Mansoor Ali Shah. The PTI chief had failed to submit his replies despite multiple orders by the trial court after the PM took the matter to the court.
Barrister Ali Zafar, PTI chief’s counsel, argued that out of 23 hearings in court, Mr Khan had requested 10 while seven were requested by the opposition.
Upon Justice Ayesha Malik’s inquiry about what impeded the PTI chief to submit replies to the court, Mr Zafar replied that the former PM did so because the questions asked of him were irrelevant. The judge remarked that Mr Khan should have submitted it in writing. Mr Zafar said he had done so and the judge replied that he failed to do this. She further remarked that the trial court repeatedly ordered the PTI chief to submit replies, to which Mr Zafar replied that the court did not rule on the relevance of the questions asked. The justice remarked that if he had informed the court [regarding the objection to questions in time], the court would have moved forward.
Justice Mansoor Ali Shah remarked that he might even have written that the questions were scandalised. Two judges including Justice Shah ruled in favour of disposing of Mr Khan s appeal for his right to defence while Justice Ayesha ruled against it. Hence, the appeal stood disposed of.
Earlier, the Lahore High Court had retained the sessions court’s decision of the closure of Mr Khan s right to reply to objections raised by PM Shehbaz in his defamation suit against Mr Khan.