Pakistan poll panel disqualifies Imran from electoral politics for 5 years

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan disqualified former prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday from electoral politics for five years following his conviction last week in a graft case related to gifts he retained from the Toshakhana (state treasure house).

On August 5, an Islamabad-based district and sessions court had sentenced Khan to three years’ imprisonment and fined him Pakistani Rs 1 lakh on the ECP’s criminal complaint against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief for concealing details of Toshakhana gifts he had retained. He was subsequently arrested and sent to Attock jail in Punjab.
Trial court judge Humayun Dilawar had also disqualified the PTI chief for five years, apparently ending his prospects of participating in the next election, provided that the superior courts did not come to his rescue this time. Dilawar’s verdict had come just a day after the Islamabad HC had declared the trial court’s maintainability verdict in the Toshakhana case “void” and had ordered him to decide the matter again after re-hearing the matter.

The ECP cited Saturday’s court order in its notification and declared Imran disqualified under Article 63(1)(h) of the constitution read with Section 232 of the Elections Act, 2017.
“Therefore, Mr Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi is disqualified for a period of five years and is also de-notified as a returned candidate from constituency NA-45 Kurram-I,” the notification read.
Earlier in the day, Imran filed a petition in the Islamabad HC challenging the trial court’s verdict in the Toshakhana case. “The decision of the trial court in the Toshakhana case is against the law,” argued the petition seeking annulment of the verdict. Imran Khan requested the HC to issue an order for his release by suspending the sentence.
The petition will be taken up tomorrow (Wednesday) by a two-member bench comprising HC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri.
Law experts in Pakistan have expressed serious reservations over the trial court’s handling of the Toshakhana case, specifically pointing out the blatant disregard for due process and the erosion of democracy through such decisions.
Meanwhile, a PTI report said that according to the police, more than 200 supporters of Imran Khan, including those who had resisted the former PM’s arrestin a corruption case, have been arrested across Pakistan’s Punjab province. Over a dozen of his supporters have been booked under terrorism charges, PTI reported the police as saying.