Pakistan’s embattled Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday approached theSupreme Court to set up a Memogate-style judicial commission to probe analleged “foreign conspiracy” to topple his democratically-electedgovernment.
The Memogate involved Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US, HussainHaqqani, who was alleged to have written an unsigned letter to ahigh-ranking American official in May 2011, exposing serious rifts betweenthe then Pakistan Peoples Party-led government and the powerful Army.
Khan has repeatedly claimed that a vote of no-confidence against him in theNational Assembly, tabled by the Opposition, was part of a US-ledconspiracy to remove him, but the US has denied this.
In a controversial move that has roiled the country, members of Khan’sPakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on Sunday blocked a vote of no-confidence inthe Prime Minister and got the President to dissolve Parliament.
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Furious opposition politicians have now filed a petition to the SupremeCourt to rule on whether the move to block the vote was constitutional. Theapex court was initially expected to decide by the end of Monday, butdelayed the decision until Thursday.
“It is the genuine aspiration/desire of the answering Respondent [ImranKhan] that this honourable court which has taken cognisance of this mattershould hold inquisitorial proceedings as done in the “Memogate case” andconstitute a high-powered commission of judges of the Superior Court.
