New Delhi: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s transfer to a private hospital and public uproar over his deteriorating health might have to wait. The Pakistan government refuses to let him out.
Two days after the Supreme Court ordered Khan’s transfer to a private hospital, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) government said it would challenge the order through a review petition. It questioned the Court’s decision to direct Khan’s transfer to a private hospital rather than a government facility.
The federal government Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to recall its order directing Khan’s transfer to Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital. The review petition, filed by Islamabad advocate general Naveed Hayat Malik on behalf of the federal capital’s chief commissioner, described Tuesday’s interim order as “discriminatory” and beyond the Court’s jurisdiction.
The government maintained that ordering treatment at a private hospital, based on a medical report that did not indicate an immediate emergency, could disrupt the criminal justice system and create a precedent for other prisoners to seek similar treatment, Dawn reported.
However, the Supreme Court has now reportedly returned the review petition citing incomplete paper books. A source familiar with the matter told Dawn that the government could refile the petition after making certain amendments and may also challenge the registrar’s objections.
PTI secretary general Salman Akram Raja, however, said the State had effectively ‘withdrawn’ its review petition following the Court’s objections.
What the petition said
The petition also invoked Article 25 of the Pakistani Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law, arguing that granting Khan access to a private hospital of his choice would amount to preferential treatment. It warned that failing to recall the order could trigger a “floodgate” of similar claims from other prisoners.
The government further argued that the Supreme Court had granted the relief sought by Khan and his family without issuing notices to all respondents, raising concerns over natural justice and due process.
Information minister Attaullah Tarar urged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) not to politicise the former prime minister’s health. PML-N Senator Nasir Butt, a close aide of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, went so far as to call the development a conspiracy against Sharif.
“The PTI founder has gone where he wanted to go,” Butt said.
Senior lawyers quoted in The Express Tribune said immediate compliance with the ruling could be interpreted by some as a sign that it had been issued with the consent of “certain quarters”.
Former additional attorney general Tariq Mahmood Khokhar, however, welcomed the Court’s decision to move Khan to a private hospital, describing it as “a moment of collective sigh of relief” for Pakistanis at home and abroad. He suggested it was evidence that “all is not well” with what he called the alliance between “extra-constitutional forces, the PML-N and the PPP”.
‘Petty dealings’
Brigadier Musaddiq Abbasi (Retd) called it a ‘shameful’ move.
“Had this Government little bit of shame , it would have acted on the advise of Dr’s report submitted in the Court. That would have motherly role of a State but we are up against the people with No humanity and shame left in them the least,” he wrote on X.
Former politician Mushahid Hussain agreed.
“Why can’t Pakistani Governments stop being petty in dealings with their political opponents, even when it’s a question of Health & Humanity, repeating past mistakes! Supreme Court’s medical relief to former PM Imran Khan should be welcomed, rather than be subjected to small-mindedness, that too by a Govt which is a temporary tenant in the corridors of power, whose, tenancy, in any case, is based on dubious legality!” he added.
Sara Taseer, daughter of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, summed it up cheekily: “To expect PMLN to take the high moral ground is to expect the pope to get married. It ain’t never gonna happen.”
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
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