MPA expelled from PTI serves legal notice on Imran Khan

PESHAWAR: Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Yasin Khalil, who was expelled from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on charges of vote-selling in Senate election, has sent a legal notice to PTI Chairman Imran Khan asking him to tender an unconditional apology or pay him Rs1 billion damages.

He sent the legal notice to the PTI chairman through his lawyers Danish Afridi, Barrister Mian Tajamul Shah and Khalid Ali Khan.

The notice was sent to PTI chief for defamation under Section 8 Defamation Ordinance 2002.

In the legal notice, the lawyers stated that you (Imran Khan) have uttered highly defamatory and slanderous accusations that our client had sold his vote against 40 million rupees.

“You called our client vote seller and also alleged that our client had swapped his vote for money and hence participated in horse-trading,” the legal notice read.

It said “You at a press conference held that a committee had been formed to probe the matter and after an elaborate inquiry the committee came up with the name of my client including others, wherein severe allegations of involvement in corruption by accepting illegal gratification for casting vote in Senate election held on in March, hence to be expelled from party membership, whereas fact of the matter is that our client was neither informed about any inquiry nor was he asked to prove his innocence before any forum.

It said our client belongs to one of the most respectable families of Peshawar. Our client enjoys a high reputation in and amongst the locals of the area and is a known personality in Peshawar.

“The fact of the matter is that our client was also holding a portfolio as Advisor to Chief Minister for Transport and Relief Rehabilitation and Settlement. During holding of such office, the chief minister kept on pressurizing our client to do appointments as per the chief minister’s choice/his blue eyed, which was totally against the established laws and the existing rules and when our client resisted to such illegal appointments, he was removed from the office and was targeted, through such forged and highly defame able campaigns, leaving our client vulnerable to the people of his Constituency and his ultimate shame,” said the legal notice.

It said that our client since day one, on the floor of the assembly as well as on various other forums always strived in favor of the party slogans which is the Rule of Law and Ultimate Justice to everyone, which was quite unlikely to some of your party leadership as mentioned above, with the direct interference by the chief minister, hence created hindrances in our client’s smooth flow of work to deliver to his people what was promised.

In this regard, it said our client even tried to approach you to redress his grievances, tried his best to bring into your notice the direct and personal involvement of the chief minister in recruitments of his blue eyed, to which again you being the party head paid no heed.

“The allegations you charged against our client were not only completely false and misleading, but also highly defamatory, disparaging and damaging, condemned to its utmost in the modern world,” the notice to PTI chief stated.

“You are hereby urged to tender an unconditional apology publicly within a period of 14 days of receiving this legal notice to our client and to withdraw all the allegations made by you and though the damage caused by you cannot be compensated in terms of money however as a token you pay a sum of Rs1 billion as damages.

Similarly, another MPA from KP Assembly has sent a legal notice to PTI chairman urging him to tender unconditional apology publicly or pay Rs1 billion as damages for levelling false allegations of horse-trading and vote-selling.