ISLAMABAD: In another major test for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will decide today (Tuesday) whether Imran Khan will remain the party chairman or not.
The electoral watchdog has fixed a case for hearing today for the removal of the PTI chairman and decide whether Imran Khan will retain the party chairman’s position or not. A five-member bench, headed by the chief election commissioner, will hear the case while Imran Khan’s lawyers will submit their reply in the case.
The petition was filed by a citizen seeking removal of the former prime minister from the party leadership after being sentenced in the Toshakhana case. In August this year, the Commission had disqualified Imran Khan for five years after he was convicted in the Toshakhana case.
A local court had sentenced the PTI chairman to three-year imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on him while hearing the ECP’s complaint against him for concealing the details of Toshakhana gifts.
The court headed by Judge Humayun Dilawar Khan had found him guilty of “corrupt practices by hiding the benefits he accrued from the national exchequer willfully and intentionally”. On the same day, Imran Khan was arrested by the police from his Lahore’s Zaman Park residence.
The ECP had declared that Imran Khan technically stood disqualified from holding any public office for five years under Article 63(1)(h) of the Constitution.
