SC clears hearing of Imran's hospital plea

.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for hearing of a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, seeking his transfer to a hospital for medical treatment after the Chief Justice set aside objections raised by the court's registrar.

The matter came up during an in-chamber hearing of an appeal challenging the registrar's objections. Uzair Karamat Bhandari, the counsel for the PTI founder, appeared before the chief justice.

Allowing the chamber appeal, the chief justice removed the registrar's objections and directed the counsel to submit a signed vakalatnama. The chief justice also ordered that the appeal seeking the PTI founder's transfer to a hospital be assigned a case number for regular proceedings.

He further ordered that the petition be clubbed with a similar case filed by Uzma Khan and accepted a request for both petitions to be fixed for hearing at the earliest.

The chamber appeal argued that the Registrar had exceeded his administrative authority, as the Registrar's Office was primarily vested with administrative and procedural powers relating to the filing and processing of cases.

It said determining maintainability, particularly where constitutional or statutory interpretation was involved, was a judicial function requiring legal reasoning and consideration of rival submissions.

The petition also sought to convert the present petition into an appeal and direct that a medical examination of the petitioner be arranged by physicians of his choice, including Dr Khurram Mirza, Dr Asim Yusuf, Dr Faisal Sultan and Dr Samina Niazi, at the earliest.