Islamabad court rejects petition challenging Imran’s nikah, citing the couple’s Lahore wedding as the reason.
ISLAMABAD:
A petition claiming that former premier Imran Khan and former first lady Bushra Bibi cohabited despite the fact that Bushra Bibi had not yet completed her obligatory iddat period was deemed inadmissible by a district and sessions court in Islamabad.
A Muhammad Haneef filed a petition claiming that Bushra Bibi got a divorce in November 2017 and then married Imran Khan on January 1, 2018 before her iddat period was up, “which is against the Sharia and the Muslim norms.”
The court heard testimony from Mufti Muhammad Saeed, who officiated Imran and Bushra’s wedding, as well as from Awn Chaundhry, a close friend of Imran’s and one of the witnesses.
The court stated that the purported nikah ceremony took place in Lahore. Since “the offense, if any, was committed within the jurisdiction of [the] learned court of competent jurisdiction [in] Lahore,” that court “could have the cognizance thereof.”
Nasrumminallah, the session court judge, stated that the complainant should go to the court of competent jurisdiction in Lahore if he or she was dissatisfied with the responses.
The petitioner stated that Imran and Bushra relocated to the federal capital shortly after their nikah and entered “valid retirement” at Imran’s Bani Gala property, which is why the petition was filed in Islamabad. Therefore, he said, the matter should be heard in an Islamabad court.
A husband and wife are considered to be in “valid retirement,” a term derived from the Sharia law term “khilwat-us-sahiha,” when they are alone together in conditions that present no legal, moral, or physical hindrance to marital intimacy.
The nikah, however, was performed inside the territorial jurisdiction of a competent court in Lahore, therefore the court ruled that it lacked authority to take cognizance of the matter. This court “does not have subject matter jurisdiction over the instant petition.”
