ISLAMABAD  -  A larger bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Thursday directed Adiala Jail Superintendent to submit a record of all individuals who have met former Prime Minister Imran Khan in jail. The Acting CJ of IHC Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar headed the larger bench while it was comprised of Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Justice Azam Khan. The bench conducted hearing in more than 20 cases which are related to meeting with Imran Khan.

During the hearing, Adiala Jail Superintendent Abdul Ghafoor Anjum appeared before the bench and adopted the stance that Khan has been granted out-of-schedule meetings beyond jail manual regulations. Later, the IHC bench ordered the jail administration to provide a complete record and also sought clarification on the procedures followed for these meetings. After issuing the aforementioned direction, the bench deferred the hearing of the case till March 24. In this matter, Acting Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has constituted a larger bench to hear cases related to meetings with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan in Adiala Jail.

Earlier, a single bench comprising Justice Dogar had directed that all cases related to meetings with Imran Khan be consolidated and heard by a larger bench. He had issued the directions while hearing a petition from Adiala Jail Superintendent Abdul Ghafoor Anjum, who sought the consolidation of cases related to the meetings of Imran Khan. The jail superintendent moved the court through his counsel Advocate Naveed Malik and adopted the stance that meeting SOPs had already been settled in an intra-court appeal, yet multiple benches were handling similar petitions. He maintained that the superintendent, responsible for thousands of inmates, had to appear before IHC five days a week, making case consolidation essential for efficiency. The petitioner complained of multiple pending petitions related to Khan’s visitation rights and conflicting judgments by courts on the said issue.