An Islamabad district and sessions court on Wednesday did not announce its already reserved verdict in the iddat case against former premier Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi while the complainant was assaulted outside the court.
The court had reserved the verdict last week on appeals filed by the PTI founder and his wife against their conviction in the iddat case — which was the third and last in a series of verdicts announced just a few days before the general elections.
While the verdict was expected to be pronounced today, District and Sessions Judge Shahrukh Arjumand sought transfer of the case and would not be announcing the judgment.
Earlier this month, complainant Khawar Fareed Maneka, Bushra Bibi’s former husband, had requested Arjumand to recuse himself from hearing the appeals, accusing him of being biased and sympathetic towards the PTI.
A video broadcast on television showed Maneka, dressed in a white shalwar kameez, walking outside court as men, who appeared to be lawyers, shoved him. He can be seen falling as people pull the attackers off of him.
Judge Arjumand had taken up the appeals on February 29. During the previous hearing, defence counsel Usman Gill and the prosecutor had concluded their arguments in the case.
As Raja Rizwan Abbasi, lead counsel for Maneka, had failed to appear, the court had ordered his associate to contact and tell him he may conclude his arguments in person or via video link. However, when Abbasi failed to appear, the court reserved its decision.
On February 3 — days before the general elections — an Islamabad court had sentenced Imran and Bushra Bibi to seven years in jail in the case, which pertains to their marriage during the latter’s iddat period.
The verdict had come in the same week Imran and Bushra Bibi had been handed 14-year sentences in the Toshakhana case, and Imran and his foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had received a 10-year sentence in the cipher case.
The judgment was widely criticised by civil society, women activists and lawyers for being a “blow to women’s right to dignity and privacy”. Activists had protested in Islamabad against the verdict while a Karachi demonstration against the “state’s intrusion into people’s private lives” had also denounced it.
Imran Khan has said he would file references for misconduct against Senior Civil Judge Qudratullah, who convicted him in the iddat case, as well as District and Sessions Judge Abual Hasnat Mohammad Zulqarnain who heard the cipher case.
Today, in a letter to the Islamabad High Court registrar, judge Arjumand said the appeals were “pending adjudication” while Maneka had “shown his mistrust on me today in open court”.
The judge noted that while Maneka’s similar request earlier had been dismissed, he considered it would “not be appropriate to decide the lis when specific objection has been raised on the presiding officer”.
“As arguments at length were heard in the matter, therefore, it is humbly submitted to transfer the two appeals” under Section 528 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to any other court of competent jurisdiction, the letter added.
“It is further submitted that the complainant and his counsel always tried to frustrate and delay the proceedings on one pretext or other,” Arjumand highlighted, adding that a “time frame may be fixed for disposal of appeals”.
The case
According to the court’s written order, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, Imran and Bushra Bibi were found guilty under Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) Section 496 (marriage ceremony fraudulently gone through without lawful marriage).
According to legal precedence, Section 496 is considered an offence completely distinct from zina, an offence that ensues from not having a contracted marriage.
The order further said that the two would be imprisoned for a further four months if they failed to pay the fines.
As per Pakistan’s superior courts, formalising nikah during iddat does not entail annulment of marriage as that requires a separate declaration; it will be treated as irregular but not void, in terms of legal fiction.
The charges against the couple had been framed by Judge Qudratullah on a complaint filed in November by Maneka under PPC Sections 34 (common intention), 496 and 496-B (fornication).
However, the 496-B charge had been dropped by the IHC later.
Days after Imran and Bushra had been indicted in the case, the IHC on January 19 had stopped the proceedings against the couple and restrained the prosecution from producing the evidence in the case.
The IHC then refused to quash proceedings in the case, saying the charge had already been framed by the trial court. It, however, gave the couple some relief by dropping the “illegitimate relations” charge of section 496-B of the PPC, which had not been framed by the trial court.
IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq had disposed of Bushra Bibi’s petition, observing that the “required procedure was not adopted” for invoking section 496-B.
