Uzma files another contempt plea in SC, this time over 'failure' to facilitate meetings between Imran and his family

ISLAMABAD: Dr. Uzma Khan, the sister of incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan, filed a contempt plea in the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday against government functionaries, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, accusing them of violating the court’s earlier directives to arrange the PTI founder’s meetings with his family and phone calls with his sons.

The interim order was issued on August 18, when the SC had directed the relevant authorities to move Imran to Shifa International Hospital for a medical check-up, as well as facilitate meetings between Imran and his family members once a week and phone calls with his sons twice a week.

Uzma filed a second contempt plea in connection with the order on Wednesday, earlier having approached the court on August 22 for contempt proceedings against those responsible for taking Imran to the government-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) instead of Shifa International Hospital.

Filed through Advocate Uzair Karamat Bhandari, the plea requested the court to treat the contents of the first petition as an integral part of the second one.

As in the first petition, Islamabad Chief Commissioner (retired) Lieutenant Sohail Ashraf, Interior Secretary Ahmed Raza Sarwar, Punjab Inspector General Prisons Mian Salik Jalal, Adiala Jail Superintendent Sajid Baig and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif have been named as respondents in the second plea as well.

The plea explained the nomination of PM Shehbaz, saying that he was the chief executive of the federation. It then referred to the 2012 case of the appointment of Adnan Khawaja as the managing director of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), in which it was held that: “[In the] brazen and blatant failure or refusal of the federal government to obey and execute the relevant judgement and directions of the Supreme Court, the buck stops at the office of the chief executive of the federation i.e. the prime minister.”

The decision led to the conviction of then-prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, through a judgement following contempt proceedings, the plea recalled.

The petition argued that the same principle should be applied to the present case, leading to the same result.

“Whereas the rest of the respondents were primarily responsible for implementing the order, they have failed to discharge that responsibility. As such, each of the respondents is liable for being proceeded for contempt of this court,” the petition contended.

The plea said that as per the SC’s Aug 10 order, the respondents were required to arrange weekly meetings between Imran and his family members, including the petitioner, as well as phone calls with his sons twice a week.

However, these directives had been “blatantly violated” by the respondents, the petition alleged, adding that during the last 14 days, since the issuance of the order, the respondents had only allowed Imran two meetings with one of his sisters, Noreen Niazi — first on Aug 18 and then on Aug 25.

None of the other family members, including Uzma, had been allowed to meet him since the passing of the Aug 18 order, the petition said.

Similarly, the respondents “have failed to arrange phone calls between Imran Khan and his sons, who have not been allowed to speak to him since March”, it added.

The petition highlighted that the directives in the Aug 18 order were “clear, unambiguous, unequivocal and fully capable of implementation”. They were issued in the presence of the Islamabad advocate general and the additional attorney general of Pakistan. “No portion thereof requires any further interpretation, clarification or modification,” the petition stated.

Consequently, the respondents being the officials responsible for putting the directions into effect, were “under an absolute legal obligation to comply with the order in letter and spirit”, the petition argued.

It contended that the refusal on part of the respondents to arrange and facilitate such meetings and phone calls “leaves no manner of doubt that they have consciously chosen to disregard and violate the Aug 18 order”.

“This is a case of deliberate and wilful disobedience and violation of the order, interference with the process of law and obstruction of the judicial process. The respondents’ conduct has the effect of undermining and lowering the authority of this court and of bringing it into disrespect, ridicule and contempt.

“Such conduct warrants cognisance of the matter by the Supreme Court,” the petition said.

Imran has been imprisoned since Aug 5, 2023, for concealing details of Toshakhana gifts. He is serving a 14-year sentence at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail in a £190 million corruption case, also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case.

Despite an order by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) allowing him twice-a-week meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays with his family, lawyers and other associates, Imran was restricted from meeting visitors for several months before the passing of the new SC order.

The PTI founder’s sisters were once again denied a meeting with him on Tuesday, although Noreen Niazi had been allowed to meet him twice in August. Before last month’s order and subsequent meetings between Noreen and Imran, the last confirmed meeting of the PTI founder was with Uzma on Dec 2, 2025, and he had also previously met with Noreen on Nov 4 last year.

Last week, the SC registrar’s office had turned down Uzma’s first request for an early hearing of the contempt petition and turned down another request on Tuesday. The petition has been fixed before a three-member SC bench, comprising Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, for Sept 16.