Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan was fined Rs5,000 on Saturday, for a second time, for seeking adjournment in the hearing of the Rs10 billion defamation case filed against Defence Minister Khawaja Asif.
\nA sessions court heard the case, in which the former prime minister\u2019s lawyer requested for the hearing to be adjourned since the main counsel was out of the country, and Imran could not appear because of a meeting.
\nThe court adjourned the hearing till October 22, but not without imposing a fine on the former premier.
\nThe former prime minister was fined Rs5,000 earlier as well, on September 10, for the same reason.
\nThe PTI chief had at that time sought adjournment due to his engagement in the party\u2019s ongoing rallies.
\nThe PML-N leader\u2019s lawyer Advocate Ali Shah Geelani appeared before the court during the hearing, but his cross-examination on Khan\u2019s statement had to be postponed.
\nEarlier this year, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had accepted Asif\u2019s petition challenging the decision to disallow the right to cross-examine then premier with reference to Khan\u2019s defamation case against him.
\nIHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah remarked that the case should be heard on a daily basis and decided in due course.
\nHe further stated that the court would order the trial court to decide the case within two months.
\nDuring the proceedings, the court asked Khawaja Asif’s lawyer why he was postponing the case, claiming that he was unnecessarily delaying the case, cautioning him against doing so.
\nThe PTI chief, in 2012, had filed a defamation suit worth Rs10 billion against Asif for levelling allegations of non-transparency, money laundering and use of anonymous companies in Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust funds.
\nIn his lawsuit, the former prime minister had referred to Asif\u2019s press conference from August 1, 2012, in which he alleged that the PTI supremo had lost a massive amount of funds donated to his cancer hospital in \u201creal estate gambling\u201d. Khan termed the allegations \u2018false and defamatory’.
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Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan was fined Rs5,000 on Saturday, for a second time, for seeking adjournment in the hearing of the Rs10 billion defamation case filed against Defence Minister Khawaja Asif. A sessions court heard the case, in which the former prime minister\u2019s lawyer requested for the hearing to be adjourned since the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[44,7967,487,2833,2867],"class_list":{"0":"post-286784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"tag-court","9":"tag-defamation","10":"tag-fine","11":"tag-imran-khan","12":"tag-khawaja-asif"},"yoast_head":"\n