As it heard the former prime minister's disqualification plea from the nation's top electoral commission, a Pakistani court noted on Monday that Imran Khan was not prohibited from running in future elections.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) disqualified Khan, 70, in the Toshakhana case on Friday because he had concealed his assets. He appealed the decision at the Islamabad High Court the next day (IHC).
Khan had not been disqualified from running in future elections, according to Chief Justice of the IHC Athar Minallah, and he was qualified to run on October 30 in the Kurram district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
"Imran Khan is still eligible to run in that election. There need to be one standard applied to everybody. In this instance, there is no need to rush. "When Khan's attorney Barrister Ali Zafar pushed to commence the hearing over administrative objections from the IHC registrar, the chief justice of the IHC stated.
The judge stated that the petition will be heard by the court once the objections were dismissed and he declined to impose a stay of the ECP ruling.
Additionally, he gave the attorney a three-day deadline to remove the objections on the petition.
The statement was made at a time when there was misunderstanding over the length of Khan's disqualification, with some claiming that he was prohibited from running for office for five years.
Khan failed to report the revenues from the sale of state items that he acquired from the Toshakhana, a division under the administrative jurisdiction of the Cabinet Division that houses priceless presents presented to important state employees, which led to the ECP ruling.
The Toshakhana was established in 1974 and is a division under the administrative jurisdiction of the Cabinet Division that houses priceless presents that foreign dignitaries and heads of other countries and nations have given to monarchs, lawmakers, bureaucrats, and officials.
Khan was removed from office in April after losing a vote of no-confidence in him, which he said resulted from a US-led plot to assassinate him for his independent foreign policy choices on Russia, China, and Afghanistan.
The cricketer-turned-politician who assumed office in 2018 is the only Prime Minister of Pakistan to have been removed by a vote of no-confidence in Parliament.