Al-Qadir Trust case: Imran, Bushra challenge SC registrar's refusal to entertain their petitions

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan and his spouse, Bushra Bibi, challenged in the Supreme Court on Monday the registrar’s decision to return a set of petitions that contested the high court’s refusal to suspend their sentences in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust case.

Imran and Bushra Bibi were convicted and sentenced in January 2025 in the corruption case, in which an accountability court found them guilty of obtaining billions of rupees and land worth hundreds of kanals from a real estate firm for legalising Rs50bn that was identified and returned to the country by the UK during the previous PTI government.

The court verdict had said that funds from foreign bank accounts, previously frozen by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), were repatriated to settle the liabilities of Bahria Town instead of being added to the national kitty. The court had found that Imran, when he was the prime minister, gave a nod to a confidential deed for the illegal transfer of funds to settle Bahria Town’s liability.

Imran was handed a 14-year sentence in the case, and Bushra was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.

The couple had challenged their convictions in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) soon after they were sentenced. They had also filed pleas seeking suspension of their sentences, which were taken up in May 2025.

After the couple sought urgent fixation of their suspension pleas in April, the IHC rejected the applications in May, declaring them infructuous as the main appeals against the convictions were already fixed for hearing.

Last week, the IHC granted a final adjournment to Imran’s counsel Sardar Latif Khosa, warning no further delay would be tolerated.

On Monday, Imran and Bushra challenged the decision of the SC registrar’s office to return their pleas against the IHC’s April 30 order. During that hearing, the IHC chief justice had emphasised that the best course would be an early disposal of the main appeal even as Imran’s lawyer sought sentence suspension.

The SC registrar’s office had returned the two separate petitions for not being entertainable, explaining that since the IHC passed the impugned order while exercising jurisdiction under Section 32 of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, the remedy against such orders lies only before the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) under Section 32-A of the NAO.

Subsequently, the couple today challenged the registrar office’s denial through a chamber appeal, filed through their lawyer, Barrister Salman Safdar, under Order V, Rule 3 of the Supreme Court Rules 2025.

The chamber appeal contended that the registrar’s office was primarily vested with administrative and procedural powers relating to the filing and processing of cases.

“Such powers are limited to ensuring compliance with procedural requirements, including scrutiny of form, limitation, and other prescribed defects, and do not extend to adjudication of substantive or justiciable issues,” the chamber appeal argued, adding the determination of maintainability, particularly where it involved interpretation of constitutional or statutory provisions, was a judicial function requiring the application of legal reasoning and consideration of rival submissions.

Such jurisdiction “exclusively rests with the Supreme Court and cannot be exercised by the registrar in an administrative capacity”, it said.

The appeal contended that while returning the petitions, the registrar’s office had failed to take into consideration the crucial aspect that under Article 175-A of the Constitution, any high court judgements, decrees, final orders and sentences could be appealed in the FCC if expressly provided by law.

It argued that Section 32A of the NAO provided for a second appeal to the FCC against a decision of the high court under Section 32 of the Ordinance, following the rejection of a first appeal.

“However, the NAO does not expressly provide for an appeal against an order passed on an application for the suspension of a sentence, even where such an application arises in an appeal under Section 32 of the Ordinance,” the chamber appeal said.

“Consequently, in view of the limited appellate remedy (only second appeal) provided under Section 32A of the NAO, 1999, and in the absence of any specific statutory remedy, the order dismissing the appellant’s application for suspension of sentence under Section 426 of the CrPC was assailable before the Supreme Court of Pakistan under Article 185(3) of the Constitution,” the chamber appeal argued. ...