LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday declared the physical remand of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan in the May 9 cases as “null and void.”
A two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh and Justice Anwar-ul-Haq Pannu reserved the verdict on petitions challenging the former prime minister’s physical remand.
The high court also nullified the notification for the PTI founder’s appearance via video link.
During the hearing, Justice Saleem stated that a suspect cannot be compelled to undergo a photogrammetric test. Meanwhile, Justice Pannu questioned the prosecutor about the sudden shift towards using modern devices.
Prosecutor General Punjab Farhad Ali Shah informed the court that the facility for conducting photogrammetric tests is available inside the jail and that it would be an injustice to deny the prosecution a “full chance.”
“At the end, the prosecution is blamed for failure,” Shah added.
The prosecutor argued that the investigation would be impossible without recovering the mobile phone through which tweets were posted and WhatsApp messages were sent.
In response, Justice Pannu questioned how the mobile phone could be recovered if the suspect is in jail.
The PTI founder had filed petitions against the anti-terrorism court’s (ATC) verdict, arguing that it did not properly assess the records when granting Khan’s physical remand.
Last week, an ATC in Lahore had approved a 10-day physical remand of the PTI founder in 12 cases related to the May 9 riots. He was remanded in five cases from Sarwar Road police station, three cases from Gulberg police station, and one case each from Race Course, Shadman, Mughalpura, and Model Town police stations.
