What happened Previously: Can Imran Khan be arrested again today? This is a question that may be on some minds. So what has happened till now is that Imran Khan was arrested by Paramilitary forces at the request of the National Accountability Bureau, the Bureau has the authority to request any agency to help arrest an accused if there are warrants against him by the NAB through its chairman or internal committee. This was the instance with Chairman PTI Imran Khan, the NAB had allegedly served him multiple summons notices in the Al-Qadir trust case to which Imran Khan did not respond, after which the NAB got warrants to arrest Imran Khan on the 1st of May.
More: When on the 9th of May, Khan reached the Islamabad High Court for his fingerprint verification, he was arrested by paramilitary forces from the premises of the IHC, causing brutal destruction of the Court Property. Urgently, an appeal was filed in the IHC regarding the legality of the arrest and after hearing the matter, the court termed Khan’s arrest valid. News of his arrest caused widespread protests and massive destruction of public and private properties, civilians allegedly broke into sensitive military establishments and vandalized them. While the police did what it was not supposed to, it stopped people from protesting against the government, there were also reports of police brutality.
What did the Court say: Yesterday, an application to the Supreme Court regarding the legality of the arrest of Imran Khan was filed to which the SC ordered NAB to produce Imran Khan, he was brought before the SC and was heard, shortly after, the Apex court declared Imran Khan’s arrest from the IHC premises, invalid. The court also said that the case before it was not regarding the legality of the warrants but of how Imran Khan was arrested. The court ordered Imran Khan to be released immediately and ordered him to stay at the police guest house until today and contact the IHC regarding the legality of the warrants.
Opinion: Now that we come to the question of whether today he will be arrested or not, the answer is not certain. Today, when Imran Khan gets to the IHC, he may file for a pre-arrest bail for his warrants, which may or may not be granted as it is at the discretion of the court, but it is usually granted. If it is not granted, the IHC may reject the bail application and order Imran Khan’s arrest on the grounds that the superior court did not invalidate his warrants but rather left the matter for the High Court to decide. Further: The other thing that may happen is that the Islamabad High Court may, at its own discretion, cancel the arrest warrants against Imran Khan maintaining that the High Court was bound to the Supreme Court’s Decision to release Imran Khan, but this is very unlikely to happen. The higher chances are that Imran may get relief from the IHC in the form of Bail or his lawyers attain a stay order on the warrants to challenge them. PC: TIME, WEF, The Statesman, Samaa English