Pak court overrules administration’s objections to petition by Imran Khan’s party

Islamabad, May 28 (PTI) A court in Pakistan has rejected the objection raised by the Islamabad High Court registrar’s office to a petition filed by the jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party against Capital Development Authority’s raid on its central secretariat here.

Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday rejected the objection raised by the IHC registrar’s office to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s petition on the grounds that it was filed “without due authorisation,” The Dawn newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The PTI plea was moved by the party’s secretary general Omar Ayub through Advocate Shoaib Shaheen

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) had last week demolished what it claimed as encroachments and sealed the PTI secretariat here in Islamabad.

In its petition, the PTI termed the operation and sealing of its secretariat “without having lawful authority, malafidely, political victimisation, without adopting due process of law and contrary to the provisions as enunciated under the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973,” the report said.

It said Arshad Dad and Naseem ur Rehman, both members of the PTI Central Finance Board, purchased the commercial plot through an agreement dated July 17, 2020, from one Sartaj Ali.

Ali wrote a letter on July 29, 2020, to the CDA for the transfer of allotment of the plot and the CDA, vide letter dated July 30, 2020, allotted/transferred the plot in the name of PTI, the report said quoting the petition.

However, on May 23, the party claimed that it came to know that the CDA “in connivance with Islamabad police,” was demolishing the PTI’s head office with neither of them able to provide any order or notice on encroachment, it claimed and added that both the CDA and the police said that the plot belonged to Ali and the notice was sent to him.

The petition requested the court to declare the CDA action illegal.

The IHC was set to hear arguments on the petition starting Tuesday, but due to the public holiday declared by the federal government to celebrate Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998, the IHC will also remain closed, the newspaper said. The hearing on the PTI petition will be rescheduled accordingly, a court official said.