LAHORE: A sessions court on Thursday allowed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to place on record the legal notice sent to incarcerated PTI founding chairman Imran Khan in connection with a Rs10bn defamation suit.

Additional District & Sessions Judge (AD&SJ) Yalmaz Ghani allowed a civil miscellaneous application filed by the prime minister, seeking permission to formally include the legal notice sent to the PTI founder as a part of the case record.

The application was filed after Khan’s counsel, Advocate Muhammad Hussain Chotia, raised an objection, during cross-examination of the prime minister, that the defamation suit was not maintainable as the legal notice allegedly sent to his client had not been made a part of the court record.

Advocate Mustafa Ramday, the plaintiff’s lawyer, submitted a copy of the legal notice and requested the court to make it a part of the official record. He maintained that the legal notice had been duly served to the defendant and all legal requirements were fulfilled before filing the suit.

The defendant’s lawyer argued that the plaintiff could not request secondary evidence at this stage of the proceedings and contended that the legal notice was never served to the defendant. He claimed that the defamation suit had become infructuous and should therefore be dismissed. He asked the court to allow the application.

The AD&SJ had reserved his verdict on the application on July 3, which he announced on Thursday.

In his defamation suit, filed in 2017, PM Shehbaz said Imran Khan had leveled baseless allegations on him. He sought a decree for recovery of Rs10bn as compensation from the defendant for publication of defamatory content.

Khan had filed his reply to the suit with a delay of four years in 2021, saying that one of his friends had told him that someone known to him and also the Sharif family had approached him with an offer to pay billions of rupees if he could convince him (Mr Khan) to stop pursuing the Panama Papers case.

Imran Khan said he disclosed the incident for the consumption of the public at large and an act in the interest of the public good did not constitute any defamation.

The reply maintained that Mr Khan did not specifically attribute any statement to the plaintiff (PM Shehbaz) while narrating the incident.

REPLIES SOUGHT: The Lahore High Court on Thursday once again sought replies from the Punjab government and other respondents on a petition challenging the appointment of divisional commissioners as interim chairpersons of seven educational boards across the province.

Justice Khalid Ishaq resumed hearing of the petition filed by Saqib Alvi, an employee of the Education Board of Sargodha.

The petitioner’s counsel, Safdar Shaheen Pirzada, informed the court that none of the respondents had submitted their replies despite notices issued to them at previous three hearings. The petitioner had contested the legality of appointing commissioners as acting chairpersons of Punjab’s Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISEs).

The counsel argued that under the law, a commissioner may only be appointed as chairperson for a maximum of three months in the absence of a regular incumbent. However, he said, in the case, the commissioners had been holding the post for over two years in clear violation of the law.

He asked the court to declare the appointments unlawful and direct the government to immediately appoint regular chairpersons to all affected educational boards.

Justice Ishaq issued fresh notices to the respondents for submission of their replies by the next hearing.

The judge also summoned the advocate general of Punjab to apprise the court about the law which allowed administrative control of educational boards to be handed over to commissioners.

The judge adjourned the case for a hearing to be fixed after summer vacations.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2025