The Supreme Court of Pakistan, led by a three-member bench comprising Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Ayesha A. Malik, and Justice Yahya Afridi, addressed the bail plea of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan in the cipher case, deeming it admissible during Wednesday’s proceedings.
The apex court issued notices to both the federation and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the same day, requesting their responses to Imran Khan’s bail plea.
The PTI Chairman and his party’s vice-chairman, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is also currently in custody, were indicted in the cipher case on October 23.
Notably, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared the jail trial related to the cipher case as ‘illegal’ in a recent development, necessitating a fresh start to the entire legal process.
In the Supreme Court hearing, PTI’s legal counsel, Salman Safdar, argued that his client was becoming a target of political vendetta. Responding to Justice Ayesha’s inquiry about the case’s foundational grounds, Safdar asserted that the primary argument was that the case should never have been registered in the first place.