Amendment aimed at keeping me in jail: Imran

RAWALPINDI: Strongly criticising the much-hyped judiciary-centric constitutional package shrouded in mystery, jailed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan claimed on Monday that the ruling coalition is attempting to introduce amendments to the Constitution in a bid to keep him behind bars.

“New amendments would destroy the country’s future,” said Khan during an informal conversation with journalists at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail. Taking aim at the rulers, he said: “They have decided to destroy the judiciary.”

When questioned about his opinion on a separate court for constitutional cases, the incarcerated former premier has a different point of view as he thought the “current rulers are afraid of the Supreme Court, therefore, they want to constitute a [separate] constitutional court”.

The cricketer-turned-politician further alleged that the federal government was involved in these practices “to hide election fraud”. The major opposition party has been touting for a long time that the February 8 general elections were “rigged” which he said snatched their big-scale electoral victory via “manipulation in the results through Form-47”.

“They are afraid that everything will be reversed if election-related matters are exposed,” he added. Announcing his future strategy, the PTI founder said that his party would never remain silent and register a strong protest against the coalition government’s moves.

Treasury and opposition benches have engaged in a tug-of-war in both houses of the parliament over the incumbent government’s prospective constitutional amendment bill which allegedly includes legislation to extend the tenure of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa — who is set to retire in October this year — as well as the retirement age of the judges.

However, the government needs to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament to successfully pass any constitutional amendment. The ruling coalition has apparently failed to manage the required numbers i.e. a two-thirds majority in parliament despite strenuous efforts on Sunday which arguably centred around Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s assent to the proposed amendments.

After failing to woo the JUI-F chief, the government decided to “indefinitely postpone” the tabling of the constitutional package. Ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Senator Irfan Siddiqui, while speaking to Geo News earlier in the day, claimed that though Fazl’s “arguments were well-justified”, he didn’t oppose the amendments on principled grounds.

He added that Fazl needed more time to review the amendment draft. On the other hand, the opposition parties — PTI and JUI-F — criticised the government for being secretive over the content of the constitutional amendments whose original draft should be presented in the parliament for a debate before its approval. In the National Assembly, the government is short of 13 votes to pass the said constitutional amendment while in the Senate, it is short of nine votes.