Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial asked on Thursday how an individual could be arrested from the court premises.
He made the remarks as a three-member Supreme Court (SC) bench, comprising the CJP, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah, began hearing PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s plea against his arrest in the Al-Qadir Trust case.
At the outset of the hearing, one of Imran’s counsels, Hamid Khan, appeared on the rostrum and informed the apex court that his client had approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking pre-arrest bail.
His lawyer said that Imran was in the process of getting his biometrics done when he was arrested. “Rangers misbehaved with Imran Khan and arrested him,” the lawyer said.
CJP Bandial observed that court records showed that the case had not been fixed for hearing. The lawyer told the court that the appeal could not be filed without completing the biometric process.
Here, Justice Minallah observed that Imran had indeed entered the court premises. “How can anyone be denied the right to justice?” he asked.
CJP Bandial said that there is a certain “respect” for the court. Recalling a past incident, he said, “The NAB had arrested a suspect from the Supreme Court’s parking. The court had then reversed the arrest.”
The CJP then asked Imran’s counsel about the number of Rangers personnel who arrested the former premier. Imran’s lawyer responded that “100 rangers personnel entered court premises” in order to arrest the PTI chief.
“What dignity remains of the court if 90 people entered its premises? How can any individual be arrested from court premises?” he asked.
“In the past, action has been taken against lawyers for vandalism inside the court,” he observed. “If an individual surrendered to the court, then what does arresting them mean?”
The petition
On Wednesday, an accountability court in Islamabad handed Imran over to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for eight days in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust case.
Subsequently, he approached the apex court to set aside the warrants issued by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman on May 1 for his arrest and to challenge the Islamabad High Court’s decision to declare the arrest “unlawful”.
The appeal, which was filed on behalf of Imran through his counsel Raja Aamir Abbas, expressed apprehension about an imminent threat to the life and liberty of the petitioner.
It argued that the warrants appeared to be in violation of Article 10-A (a provision that guarantees the right to a fair trial), as the proceedings initiated by NAB and Imran’s subsequent arrest were intended to deprive the political party and its leadership of participating in and carrying out election campaign.
The petition contended that while the IHC held that by arresting the PTI chairman on the court premises on May 9, grave illegality had been committed, the court did not issue directions for his release from “unlawful custody”.
The court only issued contempt notices to the interior secretary and Inspector General of Police, Islamabad, the petition pointed out.
While citing a 2009 judgement of the apex court, the petition argued the arrest made on court premises was illegal as the premises was the only sanctuary that citizens approach for redressal of their grievances and protection of their constitutional rights. Thus, it regretted, the entire proceedings initiated by NAB authorities and the arrest made thereunder in collusion with the present government, on the face of it was made with mala fide intention only to harass and damage the reputation of the petitioner.
The petition further argued the warrant issued by the NAB chairman under Section 24(i) of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 was “unlawful” also because warrants could only be issued during the investigation of a case or under Section 24(a)(i) when a suspect was intentionally or wilfully not joining the investigation after “repeated notices”. However, it claimed, not a single notice was issued to the petitioner after the inquiry against Imran was turned into an investigation on April 28.
The appeal recalled Imran in connection with his pre-arrest bail application was present inside the high court premises where the biometric procedure was being carried out when the Rangers personnel along with other officials broke in and shattered the windowpanes of the office to ‘unlawfully’ arrest the petitioner.
Subsequently, the matter was agitated before the IHC, which declined to declare the arrest “unlawful”, the petition recounted the events during and after the arrest.
The SC was further apprised that the issuance of warrants was unlawful since it was mandatory under Section 18(c) of the accountability ordinance that the inquiry report should be provided to the suspect before the commencement of the investigation in order to turn an inquiry into the investigation. But no such report was ever prepared or handed over to Imran, the petition said.
In his petition, Imran claimed that the alleged amount of Rs190 million had already been deposited in the Supreme Court account apparently in relation to its May 4, 2018 judgment involving the grant of 9,385-acre land by the Malir Development Authority to the Bahria Town Karachi in 2015 — about 9km from Karachi toll plaza on the superhighway.
