PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday disposed of a petition seeking the disqualification of former prime minister and PTI chairman Imran Khan from contesting the National and provincial assembly elections for marrying his current wife during her iddat period.

The development came after the plea was withdrawn by two Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl members, including JUI-F office secretary Ahmad Ali and party candidate for last year by-polls in Kurram tribal district Jamil Khan.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Shakeel Ahmad held preliminary hearing into the petition, which said that former PM Imran Khan was not qualified under Article 62 (1)(d),(e),(f) and (g) of the Constitution to contest elections in the country and therefore, he should be disqualified.

The lawyer to petitioners claimed that Mr Imran violated Islamic principles and committed a major sin as he solemnised nikkah with his current wife at a time when her iddat period of four months and 10 days after divorce from her previous husband was not covered.

The chief justice observed that the iddat period for a woman after divorce was three months, whereas the period of four months and 10 days was required as iddat for a widow.

The counsel said recently, a confession was made by the PTI chairman’s nikkahkhwan, Mufti Saeed Khan, on a private television channel that Mr Imran didn’t inform him about the iddat period at that time of marriage and therefore, the marriage was unlawful.

He added that the nikkahkhwan repeated that nikkah ceremony afterwards.

The lawyer said Mr Imran raised the issue of a diplomatic cipher carrying the details of the purported American threat to his government, declared his removal as the PM an American conspiracy, and had been issuing baseless statements against the Pakistan Army.

The bench observed that the issues raised were political in nature and were not related to the case.

It added that the petitioners didn’t have “valid grounds” to support their contention. After a preliminary hearing by the court, the petitioners decided to withdraw their plea.

The petitioners had claimed that Mr Imran had portrayed himself as a religious, honest and patriotic man, who was ‘Sadiq and Ameen’ under Article 62 of the Constitution, but in light of certain revelations and confessions of various people involved in his personal life, he was not a man of good character in line with that constitutional provision.

They also referred to the memoir of Mr Imran’s former wife Reham Khan saying the book published in 2018 revealed several “affairs” of the former prime minister showing that he was not sagacious, righteous, non-profligate and honest within the meaning of Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2023