PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has issued a stay order, temporarily stopping the speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and a special committee constituted by him from proceeding on the matter of probing the ransacking and torching of the Radio Pakistan building in Peshawar during a protest following the arrest of former prime minister and PTI founder Imran Khan in May 2023.

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal issued the order in a petition filed by Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) through its Peshawar station director, Tufail Ahmad, requesting the court to declare as illegal and set aside a notification issued by KP Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati on Dec 26, 2025, for probing the Radio Pakistan incident.

Currently, an anti-terrorism court is conducting the trial in the attack case, with 75 accused, including both current and former lawmakers, being indicted on June 3, 2025, on multiple counts. The accused had pleaded not guilty and had decided to face trial.

“This court is to take into consideration as to whether, once the matter is sub judice before the Court (trial court) and the learned trial court has taken cognisance of the matter, where numerous witnesses have put in appearance and their statements have been recorded, the speaker of the provincial Assembly was competent to constitute an Inquiry Committee and from where such competence is derived,” the bench observed.

PBC insists committee formation by PA speaker illegal

“This court is further to ascertain whether, in a sub judice matter, the Provincial Government would be competent to proceed in such a manner and whether such proceedings would not prejudice the case of the prosecution.”

The bench pointed out that as legal issues were involved in the instant case both regarding the competency of the learned trial Court in respect of the sub judice matter and the competency of the Speaker and the Committee so constituted by him, propriety would demand that both the counsel assist the court on the next date of hearing regarding the legal aspects of the case, including the competency of the Inquiry Committee so constituted and the competency of the learned trial court where the matter is sub judice.

It stopped the respondents, including the speaker, from proceeding further on the matter until the next hearing to be fixed later.

Lawyer for the petitioner Shabbir Hussain Gigyani noted that in a sitting on Dec 16, 2025, the KP Assembly passed a motion for constituting a special committee for probing the occurrence.

He added that the speaker later issued the impugned notification of the 15-member special committee having provincial law minister Aftab Alam as its chairperson.

The ToRs of the committee include the probing and determining the actual incident occurred in Radio Pakistan, Peshawar on May 9 and 10, 2023; finding causes and circumstances of the incident to ascertain whether the incident was due to a well-planned conspiracy, and the role of law enforcement agencies and their ‘excesses’.

Mr Gigyani said that on May 10, 2023, the Radio Pakistan Peshawar building was attacked, ransacked and burned down by ‘politically charged and motivated’ persons, while the FIR of the incident was registered at the cantonment police station.

He said that it was unfortunate that a number of people charged were lawmakers and at helm of affairs, running day-to-day affairs of the provincial government.

The lawyer said once the trial court took cognisance of the matter and as many as 15 witnesses appeared before the court and their statements got recorded, whether in such eventuality the respondents, more particularly the speaker was competent to constitute a special committee to look into the case, which was sub judice in the court of competent jurisdiction.

Additional advocate general Abdul Rauf Afridi appeared for the provincial government, whereas the speaker was represented by advocate Waqar Ali and assistant director (legal) Mushtaq Ahmad.

The accused facing trial also include provincial minister Meena Khan Afridi, MNA Asif Khan, MPAs Fazal Ilahi Khan and Arbab Waseem, who left PTI and joined PTI Parliamentarians, and former MPAs Arbab Jehandad, Fida Gul and Wajid Khan.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2026