ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad chief commissioner on Saturday approached the Supreme Court (SC), seeking an early hearing of the government’s review petition challenging the SC’s Aug 18 order to shift incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan to Shifa International Hospital.

The application requested the SC to fix the review petition for hearing at the earliest.

The chief commissioner argued that the Aug 18 order to shift the PTI founder to the private hospital had affected the government’s constitutional authority.

On Aug 18, a three-judge SC bench, headed by Justice Shahid Waheed and comprising Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, issued directives for Imran’s transfer while hearing several petitions concerning the former prime minister’s health and family meetings. The court ordered Imran’s transfer from prison to the private hospital within two days.

On Thursday, the SC Registrar’s Office returned the petition filed by the federal government seeking a review of the Aug 18 order.

The review petition was returned with the objection that the contents of the affidavit and facts, along with the review petition filed under Article 188 of the Constitution, had not been properly drawn up and that one of the paper books of the review petition was not in order. The Registrar Office directed that the petition be resubmitted within two weeks after removal of the objections.

The petition argued that the Aug 18 judgment suffered from a fundamental procedural defect, inasmuch as the prescribed procedure for moving a convict to a hospital for treatment had been overlooked. This rendered the order liable to review, it argued.

The chief commissioner refiled the review petition under Article 188 of the Constitution, read with Rules 1 and 2 of Order 28 of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Rules, 2025, arguing that the Aug 18 order appeared “discriminatory”.

The review petition contended that Article 25 of the Constitution guaranteed the fundamental right to equal treatment, adding that the Constitution “abhors” discrimination and favouritism.

“The court’s directions for the treatment of the convict in a private hospital, and that too on a report which does not disclose any condition requiring immediate medical treatment, will severely disturb the entire criminal justice system,” the review petition said.

It argued that similarly placed convicts would also claim the same special treatment afforded to Imran, in violation of prison rules. Therefore, the Aug 18 order was discriminatory in nature, as similarly placed prisoners had not been afforded the same opportunity to receive medical treatment at a private hospital of their choice.

“If the interim order is not recalled, it will open a floodgate of prisoners seeking similar relief, which under the prevailing law cannot be granted,” the petition warned.

Citing Rule 197 of the Pakistan Prison Rules, 1978, the petition argued that the Aug 18 order offended the scheme of the prison rules insofar as its directions related to Imran’s admission to a private hospital.

“The lives and affairs of inmates are strictly regulated by law in order to ensure their safety and well-being and to prevent any external infiltration or influence that could have an adverse effect on their lives or the process of sentences undergone by them,” it said.

“A careful study of the prison rules transpires that it does not recognise the concept of engaging with a private hospital since it would inevitably open up the life of an inmate to various unsafe external variables.”

The petition added that the rules only made provisions for treatment, examination, accommodation and keeping of inmates in prison hospitals, or otherwise civil hospitals and district headquarter (DHQ) hospitals if it was necessary to take them outside of the jail premises.

“The order in review upsets the entire structure as envisaged and established by express provision of the rules,” it said, noting that these statutory provisions seemed to have escaped the SC’s notice.

The review petition further contended that the inherent power conferred by Section 561-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) may be exercised “only with a view to prevent abuse of the process of any subordinate court”, and that it offered “no remedy whatsoever” in relation to jail administration affairs.

“The powers under this provision cannot be invoked to circumvent and bypass alternate remedies otherwise provided under the Prisons Act, 1894, the Prisoners’ Act, 1900 and the Pakistan Prison Rules, 1978,” it added.

The review petition argued that a court seized of a criminal appeal exercised powers that were exhaustively defined by the CrPC, namely to hear the appeal, to adjourn the matter pending its final disposal, to permit the recording or introduction of additional evidence, and other specific powers that the code conferred upon an appellate criminal court.

It added that no action could be taken by such a court that was not expressly provided for within the remits and corners of the code.

“The relief presently sought by the petitioner qua his transfer to a private hospital, the constitution of a specialist medical board, and the ancillary directions connected therewith, finds no place among these appellate powers, and could not, therefore, be granted by a court exercising jurisdiction over a criminal appeal,” the review petition contended.