PESHAWAR: A local court on Wednesday sought the list of defence witnesses from Prime Minister Imran Khan in a defamation case about a horse-trading charge against former MPA Fauzia Bibi.

Additional district and sessions judge Abdul Majid Khan fixed Oct 20 for the next hearing into the case directing Mr Imran’s lawyer Intazar Hussain Panjotha to produce the list of witnesses for furthering proceedings.

Ms Fauzia was accused by the prime minister of selling her vote in the 2018 Senate elections.

The plaintiff’s lawyer,Syed Ghufranullah Shah, has already submitted a list of 13 witnesses to the court. They included Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, who was the divisional president of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf at that time.

At the start of the hearing, the court was informed that the defence side had so farnot produced the list of its witnesses in the case.

Peshawar court fixes hearing for Oct 20

The former MPA, who was elected on a seat reserved for women as a PTI nominee, filed the lawsuit for the recovery of Rs500 million damages from Mr Imran on the charge of defaming her through ‘baseless’ allegations in a news conference.

The defamation suit was filed in June 2018 under the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, and the only defendant in it is PTI chief Imran Khan, who became the prime minister afterwards.

The former lawmaker claimed that she had followed the party’s directions for voting in the March 3, 2018, Senate polls but the defendant later uttered, spread, and resorted to the ‘publication, communication and circulation of maliciously false, baseless and unfounded oral statements and representation’ against her.

The court had decided on Feb 13to start ex parte proceedings against the prime minister over his failure to submit reply to the lawsuit despite repeated orders.

A reply was later submitted on behalf of Mr Imran, who sought the dismissal of the defamation suit claiming it is based on mala fide and ulterior motives on part of the plaintiff.

In the reply, he said that his news conference in question was based on the findings of a fact-finding committee of the party on the horse-trading matter and that his remarks in that respect were made public in good faith.

Mr Imran also insisted that he had said nothing on his own or out of personal experience and instead, he had only highlighted the ‘true’ information provided by the fact-finding committee.

He said that the fact-finding committee disclosed to him the names of the MPAs, who had not voted for the party’s candidates in the Senate elections and causing the failure of the latter.

The prime minister claimed that the findings of that committee were based on strong evidence and the same was narrated by him during the news conference in question.

On Dec 14, 2019, the court had rejected an application of Mr Imran, who sought the dismissal of the defamation suit claiming it is not maintainable.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2021