Pakistan government appeals Supreme Court order to move Imran Khan to private hospital
Abid Hussain
Pakistan’s government has appealed a Supreme Court order to move former Prime Minister Imran Khan from prison to a private hospital, advocating instead for treatment at a public facility. The appeal follows a ruling that also allowed family visits and phone calls, but the government argues legal procedures were bypassed.
Islamabad, Pakistan — The Pakistani government has formally appealed a Supreme Court ruling that ordered the transfer of detained former Prime Minister Imran Khan to a private hospital for medical treatment.
The chief commissioner’s office in the capital Islamabad filed the appeal on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court directed prison authorities to move Khan from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad within two days. The court also mandated the formation of a five-member medical board and allowed Khan’s sister Uzma Khan and his personal physician Faisal Sultan to be part of the treatment process.
Under the ruling, Khan is permitted weekly family visits and twice-weekly phone calls to his two sons who live in London. However, the court also barred his family, party, and lawyers from publicly discussing his health condition until the case is reviewed on September 16.
In its appeal, the government argued that the court bypassed legal procedures by ordering Khan’s transfer without prior input from prison authorities. The government also warned that the ruling could prompt similar demands from other inmates.
Khan, 73, has been detained since August 2023 following convictions in several cases that he and his party, Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), say are politically motivated. Over the past year, concerns about his health — particularly vision in his right eye — have prompted repeated appeals to courts from his family and party.
Following the court’s decision, his wife Bushra Bibi met him along with two of their children at Adiala Jail. His sister Noreen Niazi also held her first brief meeting with him in nine months.
The government’s appeal comes after Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar’s video statement on Tuesday, in which he said the government wants Khan to be examined at a public hospital. “This ruling is not within the legal parameters regarding facilities that can be provided to a convict in prison,” Tarar wrote on social media platform X, arguing that under prison regulations, the medical board — not the court — has the authority to decide whether treatment should be in prison or at a hospital.
Meanwhile, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Wednesday accused Khan’s PTI party of politicizing the health issues of opponents in the past. “History bears witness that PTI politicized the health issues of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership,” he said at a televised press conference. “Our leadership has never said a word about the health of the PTI founder. This is a legal matter. There should be no politics in it.”
However, Parliamentary Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhary told the Senate that the government would comply with the court’s ruling, asserting that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “has no authority to go against judicial decisions” — a stance contradicting the appeal filed just hours later.
Senior PTI leader Sheikh Waqas Akram said the inconsistency in the government’s position exposed its “hypocrisy.” “On one hand they say they respect the court’s ruling, so why are they now opposing it?” he told Al Jazeera. “Days before the ruling, government officials messaged our leadership that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wanted dialogue. And now, after the court’s decision, they want to file an appeal? Why are they doing this?”
Another senior PTI leader, Zulfi Bukhari, suggested the government appears divided over the Supreme Court ruling. “There is definitely confusion in their ranks,” he said. “Some are trying to accept it graciously and properly implement the Supreme Court’s decision, while others view it as a major threat.”
Bukhari added that if the government’s appeal is dismissed, Khan should be moved to the private hospital immediately. If the appeal is accepted, PTI will “take the matter to court legally.”
Akram stressed that the appeal does not suspend Tuesday’s ruling. “Until the court stays its decision, Imran Khan must be moved to the hospital as directed,” he warned, adding that failure to implement the ruling “only deepens hatred and makes reconciliation harder.”
