ISLAMABAD: Bushra Bibi, the former first lady and wife of Imran Khan, the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has taken legal action against a petition filed by her ex-husband, Khawar Maneka, challenging her marriage to Khan.
Bushra filed a plea with the Islamabad High Court (IHC), urging the court to dismiss Maneka’s petition on grounds that her marriage to the PTI founder was neither “fraudulent” nor un-Islamic.
In her plea, Bushra, represented by her lawyer Barrister Salman Akram Raja, argued that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and emphasized that high courts had previously ruled that marriages during iddat were irregular but not annulled.
Maneka had previously filed a petition with a district and sessions court in Islamabad, contesting Khan and Bushra Bibi’s marriage.
Bushra’s plea to the IHC aims to challenge the admissibility of the case, asserting that it should be dismissed, and the proceedings of the trial court should be stayed pending a decision on the application.
According to Maneka, he divorced Bushra on November 14, 2017, verbally divorcing her three times on April 15, 2017. He claimed that the former first lady moved to her mother’s house in August 2017 and stayed there until her marriage to Imran Khan on January 1, 2018.
In her plea to the IHC, Bushra sought to declare the order of the additional sessions judge East on January 11 as “null and void.”
She requested the court to dismiss the case and stay the proceedings of the trial court until a decision is reached on the application.
Maneka, in his petition, alleged that the nikah was fraudulent and took place during Bushra’s iddat, describing the marriage as neither legal nor Islamic. He accused Imran Khan of negatively impacting his life, stigmatizing him and his family to achieve unethical objectives.
The petitioner prayed for the summoning and punishment of Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi in accordance with the law in the interest of justice.
The civil judge has fixed a hearing for the case on November 28, during which Mufti Saeed, Aun Chaudhry, and Muhammad Latif have been nominated as witnesses.
I am an experienced writer, analyst, and author. My exposure in English journalism spans more than 28 years. In the past, I have been working with daily The Muslim (Lahore Bureau), daily Business Recorder (Lahore/Islamabad Bureaus), Daily Times, Islamabad, daily The Nation (Lahore and Karachi). With daily The Nation, I have served as Resident Editor, Karachi. Since 2009, I have been working as a Freelance Writer/Editor for American organizations.
