KARACHI: Imran Khan has approached the Supreme Court in wake of the recent political scenario, but the arguments he raised in the petition itself charge-sheeted the apex court and portrayed the court as collaborator of the establishment.
Khan has requested the court to declare the “unannounced martial law in the country” in view of the deployment of armed forces in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Islamabad as unlawful and unconstitutional and military trial of civilians under the Army Act as unconstitutional.
He has also sought declaration of the detention of PTI activists and leaders under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance as unconstitutional, and requested the court to order immediate release of the detainees. He says the action being taken to force his party activists to quit the PTI is also unconstitutional and in violation of Article 17. He has called for the constitution of a Supreme Court judge-led judicial commission to investigate the May 9 incidents.
Imran Khan has mentioned a historical background in his petition in which he has distorted facts and taken many U-turns on his position and narrative. The stance that the PTI chief has taken in the 9th point of his petition has in face charge-sheeted the apex court. He says: “The government wants to create a wrong impression about the armed forces of Pakistan, which is the main objective of Maryam Nawaz. Maryam Nawaz is looking at this situation as an opportunity to take revenge for her father’s ouster from the government.”
This is a serious allegation which apparently has been levelled against Maryam Nawaz, but it has raised a question mark about the apex court, because Nawaz Sharif was disqualified through a court verdict, and the five-member bench that disqualified Nawaz Sharif has become more controversial.
Then apex court bench comprised Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Azmat Saeed Sheikh and Justice Ejazul Ahsan, and these judges disqualified the sitting minister of the country on the basis of interpretation of a receivable salary from a dictionary.
These judges constituted joint investigation teams of their own choice through WhatsApp calls, when the trial was conducted in a subordinate court, one judge, Justice Ejazul Ahsan, became the monitoring judge of the implementation of court orders. Then, verdicts came out against Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, and they were put behind bars.
Today, Imran Khan is telling the same Supreme Court through his petition that Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the establishment and Maryam Nawaz is taking revenge from the establishment for having done so. This means Khan is admitting that Nawaz Sharif was not ousted on merit, and it was in fact the establishment that drove him out of power and the SC judges became its collaborators. This allegation has been levelled against the apex court and the establishment for the past six years, but today Imran Khan himself, the biggest opponent of Nawaz Sharif, has confirmed this impression.
In the 6th point of the petition, the position taken is that the applicant, i.e. Imran Khan, learnt of the terrible incidents of May 9 when he was presented before the court on May 11, and after the court informed him about the events, he immediately condemned those incidents though he had been fully aware of those incidents.
Imran Khan has taken this position in his petition, but the fact is that when on May 11 Khan was presented before the SC on the order of Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial he did not give any statement to condemn the May 9 incidents. In fact, he kept saying that reaction came after he was arrested and he was not responsible for that.
On May 11, he said in the SC that whatever unrest occurred it took place after his arrest, nobody was given such a bad treatment as I was. The reaction was bound to follow.
At this, Justice Athar Minallah told Imran Khan that a leader cannot say that what his activists are doing he is not responsible for that. He told him that he was responsible for the actions of his supporters. The judge told him to appeal to his workers and the public to remain peaceful. The judge remarked that the political environment was bad because of political leaders. He also told Khan that every word that he uttered was important.
This means when the hearing was held on May 11 respectable judges asked Imran Khan to stop his workers from lawlessness but he replied that he was not responsible for what was happening. After the passage of several days and facing criticism, Khan finally condemned the May 9 incidents. However, he is now telling the SC that he had condemned the violent incidents in the SC on May 11. In addition to this, Khan has again in his petition not presented evidence against agencies that he had claimed to have. Instead, Khan has accused his political opponents of trying to create rifts between him and the army.
In this petition, Khan has also backtracked from his position that his workers were not involved in the May 9 incidents. In point 9 in his petition, he said he and PTI workers acknowledged extraordinary sacrifices of the armed forces and this the PTI’s decisive policy that if its workers and supporters had turned violent they should face the law. However, they have the right to fair trial and due process just like every Pakistani because the government intends to malign the armed forces.
This means that Khan himself is saying that the government wants to exploit the situation and create a rift between the PTI and the army. However, the reality is that this rift has been created by Khan himself.