By Ali Ijaz Buttar

'On 3.8.2023 the IHC CJ issued notice for next week in the revision application filed by Imran Khan against refusal by the trial judge to allow him to present witnesses in his defence.  

At the same time the CJ IHC directed the trial court to hear final arguments on 4.8 2023! While the IHC is yet to decide the question of defence evidence the trial court has given its verdict convicting IK. This is an absurd situation. 

It needs to be noted that there is no finding in the judgment that any gift was bought at an undervalued price or that the purchase was not in accordance with the rules. Also no finding that any gift, in particular the watch, was sold for a price greater than that disclosed.

For 2018/19 the finding is that the gifts bought for Rs 21 mi in accordance with the rules are stated to have been sold for Rs 58 million. However, the full amount of Rs 58 million is not reflected in the account statement for the account in Bank Alfalah. Only Rs 30 mi is reflected.  How is this misdeclaration? Full sale proceeds has been disclosed in Form B.  Rs 28 million out of the sale price of Rs 58 million could be cash in hand or expenditure made between the date of the sale and the cut off date for Form B. Defence witnesses who were proposed to be the financial consultants/accountants who had filled the forms would have explained this. 

For 2019-20 the finding is that three gifts were acquired but none is disclosed in Form B. The judgment does not give a finding as regards the value of these gifts. No wrongdoing is alleged with respect to these gifts. Mr Imran Khan took the position that these had been further gifted by him and since he did not possess them on 30.6.20 they were not required to be listed in Form B.  

For 2020-21 the finding is that five gifts were acquired from the toshakhana. These are mentioned in Form B as precious items but the details are not disclosed. Even though the value of the asset is declared, according to the judge it should have been declared as asset in a separate section instead of this one. This is all that the judgment says. 

The judgment generally says that no jewelry is disclosed for any year and finds this surprising, even though the value of precious items held is disclosed for each year. These general observations are not relevant to any charge framed against Mr Imran Khan. 

Mr. Imran Khan had raised various objections to the maintainability of the complaint, including that after 120 days, no complaint was maintainable. The judgment offers no reason to justify maintainability. All it does is rely on two previous decisions, both of which have already been set aside by the Islamabad High Court.

The basis for finding that there is a misdeclaration is a tenuous legal argument that Mr. Khan was required to disclose assets transferred during the year. So it doesn’t hold that the assets as declared on 30 June were incorrect in anyway. IK was asked why did he not declare the gifts that he had transferred during 2019-20? His response was that he was not required to as advised by his lawyers and financial consultants who filled the form for that year and that they should be allowed to appear as witnesses to explain. Court disallowed defence evidence.

That's all there is to the judgment.'

*The article was originally posted on Twitter by Ali Ijaz Buttar, who is a member of Imran Khan's legal team 

*Opinions expressed in this article are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The South Asia Times