ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday fixed the hearing for PTI founder Imran Khan and his spouse Bushra Bibi’s petitions against their conviction in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust corruption case on March 31.

According to the cause list issued by the IHC registrar’s office, a division bench — comprising IHC Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Asif — will hear the pleas seeking suspension of Imran and his spouse’s sentences on March 31.

An accountability court in Islamabad had sentenced Imran and Bushra to 14 and seven years in prison, respectively, on Jan 17, 2025, in the £190m graft case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case.

At the last hearing of the case, held on March 11, the IHC imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for employing “delaying tactics” in the case.

However, a later written order did not include any direction regarding the imposition of a fine. The court had directed the anti-graft body to come prepared on the next date of hearing, with the defence team pushing for a swift resolution.

The defence team had urged the court to dispose of the petition early, requesting a decision before the Eid vacations.

The appeals and suspension pleas have faced numerous procedural hurdles.

The IHC registrar’s office had previously raised objections to the petitions, citing issues such as unsigned pages and the absence of a certificate confirming the case wasn’t being heard elsewhere.

On February 26, the high court had cleared these objections and scheduled the March 11 hearing after defence lawyers pressed for an early date, highlighting Imran’s eye condition.

SC to hear Imran’s appeals in defamation case

At the same time, the Supreme Court is also set to resume hearing on March 31 over the appeals filed by Imran against the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) April 23, 2025 rejection of his plea to implicate the Punjab government in the Rs10 billion defamation suit brought by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

A three-member bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, also consists of Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, will resume the hearing. Earlier, the same case was heard by the Supreme Court on February 8.

PM Shehbaz had instituted the suit for recovery of damages against PTI founder on July 7, 2017, alleging that Imran had defamed him. The suit pertains to statements made by Imran during a televised show and a subsequent public rally in 2017, in which he alleged that he was offered a bribe of Rs10 billion to back off from the Panama Papers case against the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

Subsequently, the petitioner (Imran) instituted a plea before the LHC, stating that the province of Punjab, through the Law Department Secretary, may be implicated as a respondent in this civil revision and notices be also issued to the respondents.

In response, the LHC, through its order on April 23, 2025, held that the matter was between the respondent/plaintiff and petitioner/defendant, who were private parties, regarding the recovery of damages.

Therefore, the Punjab law department had no concern whatsoever with the Lis in question, the high court said, adding the Punjab law secretary was not a party before the courts below, as such it was neither a necessary nor a proper party.

Thus, to this extent, the application was dismissed as being devoid of any force, the high court contended, also holding that another request to issue notice to the respondent (Shahbaz) was also dismissed since the main case was still at the motion stage.

During the pendency of the proceedings in the suit, the defendant/petitioner (Imran Khan) had also filed an application under Section 13 of the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, to decide the question of jurisdiction and maintainbility of the suit by Additional District Judge, Lahore being a court inferior to the District Court and prayed that the suit may be sent to the District Judge for its denovo trial. This plea was also rejected and the Supreme Court would hear the same on March 31.

The present case is different from a separate case in which a different bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Ayesha Malik on Feb 21, had stayed defamation proceedings in the Rs10 billion, pending before a trial court in Lahore.

Then the three-judge Supreme Court bench, had taken up a set of review petitions filed by Imran Khan. The court had also issued notice to the respondent (PM Shehbaz).

The case was moved after the trial court of additional district judge had closed the right of defence – a decision that was also upheld by LHC and later endorsed by the Supreme Court through its judgement of Feb 21, 2023 in which through a majority judgement of two to one, it observed earlier that the conduct of the PTI founder was wilfully contumacious and disobedient throughout the trial court proceedings and had held that the trial court had not committed any illegality or material irregularity in closing the right of defence.

The judgement, authored by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, had also observed that the LHC had rightly declined to interfere in its revisional jurisdiction.

By its order dated Oct 20, 2022, the trial court had dismissed the petitioner (Imran Khan) ’s objections seeking the rejection of the interrogatories submitted by the respondent (Shehbaz Sharif) and directed him to submit answers to those interrogatories.

Later, through a subsequent order dated Nov 24, 2022, the trial court struck out the petitioner’s right of defence for failing to submit the answers.