Supreme Court Serves Notices To Respondents In PTI Chairman's Post-arrest Bail Plea

The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday issued notices to respondents, including the State and Interior Ministry on post arrest bail petition of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman in the cipher case

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Nov, 2023) The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday issued notices to respondents, including the State and Interior Ministry on post arrest bail petition of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman in the cipher case.

A three-member bench headed by Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Ayesha Malik heard the case.

During the course of proceedings, Justice Afridi asked the petitioner’s counsel whether the cipher was a confidential document or not.

The PTI chairman’s counsel Salman Safdar Advocate adopted the stance that it was no more a confidential document after being declassified.

Justice Afridi questioned whether the cipher was shown to someone before it was declassified.

Justice Tariq Masood asked about its waving in the public and also disclosing its content. Some constitutional provisions applied in the cipher case pertained to the punishment of death penalty and life imprisonment, he added.

Earlier, Salman Safdar Advocate read the contents of first information report (FIR) against the PTI chairman. He said that it was alleged that the PTI chairman had asked Azam Khan to portray the cipher in a purported manner. It was also claimed that his client had directly or indirectly caused damage to the state, he added.

To a court's query, he said that Asad Umar had been discharged from the case while Azam Khan was included in the list of prosecution witnesses.

Justice Tariq Masood noted that the accused had been blamed for compromising the code of the cipher, which though was kept on changing. It could be changed many times even in a week.

Salman Safdar said that on merit no case in the matter not be initiated against his client.

Justice Afridi remarked that the court was not holding trial rather it was just viewing the allegations. The PTI chairman was the prime minister that time and he shared the cipher with the participants of a meeting, he noted.

He questioned that why the minutes of the meeting were recorded if the PTI chairman was hatching some sort of a conspiracy on the cipher. It was a matter of leaking the contents of cipher before the court, he added.

Justice Masood observed that the defence could face loss after termination of jail trial as weaknesses in the trial could be used later for defence. Now the prosecution would remove all the errors and conduct the trial again, he said.

The court, subsequently, served notices to the respondents on the bail petition of PTI chairman.

It may be mentioned that the trial and high courts had already dismissed the same case.