Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi gets major relief

An accountability court on Monday transferred the new Toshakhana reference against the PTI founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to a relevant court.

The development comes after the Supreme Court’s verdict on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) amendments.

Accountability court’s Judge Muhammad Ali Warraich today heard the bail pleas of the PTI founder and his wife at a makeshift court in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.

During the hearing today, PTI founder’s lawyer Salman Safdar told the court that the new reference could not be heard under existing NAB laws.

He pleaded with the accountability court to transfer the reference to another court after giving a verdict on the bail petitions.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of government in the NAB amendments case.

The apex court approved the intra-court appeals filed against the September 15, 2023 majority judgment striking down the amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).

The five-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faiz Isa and comprising Justice Aminuddin, Justice Jamal Khan Mandukhel, Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi announced the majority 5-0 verdict.

The verdict said that Imran Khan could not prove that NAB amendments were unconstitutional.

The verdict was reserved on June 06 on multiple appeals against the court’s September 15 verdict which was announced by then-CJP Umar Ata Bandial.

The majority judgment had struck down some amendments made to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999.