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- June 16, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
ISLAMABAD: A private person filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Saturday to overturn the dismissal of his case, which sought the disqualification of former Prime Minister Imran Khan for allegedly hiding his daughter Tyrian Khan White in the nomination papers for the 2018 general elections. Through his attorney Saad Mumtaz Hashmi, the petitioner, Mohammad Sajid, contended that the Islamabad High Court (IHC) panel that dismissed his petition erred in accepting the reserved and undisclosed concurring opinion of two of the three judges as the court’s ruling.
The petitioner argued that the ex-premier only provided information about his spouse, Bushra Bibi, and two sons who were living abroad, Qasim Khan and Sulaiman Khan and that he did not mention the existence of his alleged daughter, Tyrian Khan White, when he filed nomination papers to contest election from Mianwali constituency (NA-95) on June 11, 2018. Furthermore, the petitioner added that since Mr. Khan furnished a false affidavit, he was subject to disqualification by the ruling in the 2018 Habib Akram case. Tyrian Khan White was born on June 15, 1992, and the petition claimed that once she and her paternity were established by the court record in the courts of California, the United States, it was an indisputable truth that she was Mr. Khan’s genuine daughter.
The petitioner has already presented this information before the IHC in 2022. On February 2, 2023, a single bench considering the case determined that a full bench consisting of three judges would hear the case. Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Arbab Mohammad Tahir, and Chief Justice Aamer Farooq of the IHC then took up the case. They postponed the ruling until March 30, 2023, following the hearing. Before the chief justice could voice his opinion, the petition was dismissed by a majority of two to one, according to the concurring opinion of two other justices that was posted on the IHC’s website.
As the two judges’ concurring opinions could not have been uploaded before the case was scheduled for judgment announcement, the CJ then ordered an investigation in addition to removing it from the website. After deciding to step down from the case later on May 10, 2023, the Chief Justice ordered the “opinion of the two judges be sealed” and scheduled a new trial with the entire bench. The petition was filed on May 21, 2024, according to the petitioner, but the IHC full bench rejected it instead of starting over and hearing the matter from the beginning.
The petitioner contended that, given the legislation announced by the Supreme Court in several decisions, the opinion of two justices put on the website did not constitute a judgment, challenging the dismissal of his petition rather than having it heard again. He stated that the two judges’ concurring conclusion from the previous round of the petition hearing did not bind the whole IHC bench. He asked the SC to rule that the dismissal of his petition was “erroneous and liable to be set aside,” arguing that the opinion of two judges was not a decision and, therefore, had no legal force. According to the petition, Mr. Khan’s alleged deception of voters through his nomination papers for the 2018 elections rendered him ineligible and kept him disqualified from holding any public office. This is because his purported act of deceiving the electorate did not cease to exist when his term as a member of parliament expired.