Former first lady Bushra Bibi. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
An application has been filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking suspension of the judgment of Bushra Bibi, wife of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, in the Al-Qadir Trust case on medical grounds.
As the IHC division bench headed by Chief Justice Sardar Sarfraz Dogar resumes hearing Bushra Bibi and Imran’s pleas for stay of their sentences on April 22, their lawyer Salman Safdar has moved an application to explain her health condition.
The Court has been requested to proceed with the consideration and determination, preferentially and substantively, of the applicant’s application for a stay of sentence in the interests of justice and fair play.
The application has been pending at IHC for more than a year. The application has further requested the IHC to summon the Superintendent of Jails, the Deputy Superintendent of Jails and the Head of Ophthalmology Department of Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital, Rawalpindi and request them to appear with complete medical records including operation notes, diagnosis, treatment history and all relevant documents regarding the operation performed on Bushra Bibi.
“The applicant must be immediately shifted to Al-Shifa Trust Eye Hospital, Rawalpindi for proper post-operative treatment under continuous medical supervision and that the jail authorities concerned be instructed to ensure regular, meaningful and unhindered access to the applicant’s lawyer and family members in accordance with the law and previous judicial directions,” the application further states.
“Bushra Bibi has faced prolonged imprisonment, repeated delays in deciding her application for a reprieve, continued denial of access to lawyers and now serious medical deterioration, culminating in a surgical procedure performed under undisclosed circumstances,” it added.
“All of these factors, when considered cumulatively, establish extreme hardship, violation of fundamental rights, and manifest abuse of process, entitling the applicant to immediate relief.”
The application noted that Bushra Bibi, being a woman, convicted on “charges of aiding and abetting” and sentenced to a term of seven years, is entitled to be granted bail on statutory as well as humanitarian grounds, particularly in circumstances where her appeal has been pending for a prolonged period of over a year and her medical condition has significantly deteriorated within a year. It stated that continued detention of the applicant in such circumstances would serve “no useful purpose” and would amount to perpetuating irreparable harm.
“During the pendency of the proceedings, the lawyer for the applicant and her family were abruptly and informally informed by the prison authorities that the applicant had undergone an eye operation due to certain complications. It is of grave concern and serious alarm that neither the lawyer nor any member of the applicant’s family was informed or consulted prior to any prior medical procedure before any medical procedure was ever undertaken. The applicant’s condition which could necessitate such a surgical procedure “The whole process appears to have been carried out in complete opacity, without adherence to basic standards of transparency and without giving the applicant the benefit of consultation with her lawyer or family,” the application said.
