The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has issued a mandate for a swift resolution in the appeal concerning the Iddat case involving Imran Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and his wife, Bushra Bibi.
On February 3, Imran and Bushra Bibi were sentenced in the Iddat Nikkah case. Twenty days later, an appeal against the verdict was filed in the sessions court. Initially presided over by Judge Arjumand, the case faced a delay prompting a transfer request to the IHC. Subsequently, the IHC assigned Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka to the case. Imran and Bibi contested this decision through lawyer Salman Akram Raja, although the registrar’s office maintained the appeal’s pending status before the sessions court.
Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb, leading the hearing, today instructed the sessions court to resolve Bushra Bibi’s plea for sentence suspension within 10 days and ordered a decision on the appeal within a month.
During the proceedings, Salman Akram Raja expressed concerns over the sudden transfer of the case and urged the court to direct Judge Shah Rukh Arjumand to deliver the reserved verdict. Raja proposed that the high court itself could take up the appeal or reassign it to Judge West for expedited resolution, emphasizing the trial’s swift conclusion in two days as a benchmark for urgency.
Raja Rizwan Abbasi, representing Khawar Maneka, contested the transfer, arguing that objections had been previously dismissed, and the administrative decision to assign the appeals to Additional Session Judge West was final.
After deliberation, Justice Aurangzeb reaffirmed the court’s direction, assigning Additional Session Judge Afzal Majoka to decide on both the suspension request and the appeal within the stipulated timeframes.
