Former Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has approached the Supreme Court (SC) seeking immediate transfer to Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital. The petition, filed by senior counsel Uzair Karamat Bhandari, requests the apex court to grant leave to appeal against a March 12 decision by the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which had previously denied these facilities.
Imran Khan’s sister, Dr. Uzma Khan, had also filed a similar petition earlier challenging the IHC ruling.
Through his legal team, Khan requested the court to arrange an immediate medical examination by a panel of physicians of his choice, including Dr. Khurram Mirza, Dr. Asim Yusuf, Dr. Faisal Sultan, and Dr. Samina Niazi.
The plea further demands continuous access to his family, legal counsel, and doctors during his incarceration, alongside the provision of his complete medical records from the last four months, such as eye examinations, blood reports, and diagnostic data.
According to the filed documents, the former premier has suffered severe damage to his right eye. The petition references a February report by amicus curiae Salman Safdar, which stated that Khan retains only 15 percent vision in his right eye due to central retinal vein occlusion, a condition caused by a blood clot.
The filing states that Khan reported blurred vision to the jail superintendent months before October 2025, but received only eye drops for nearly three months. The petition warns that the clot poses life-threatening risks, including the potential to travel to the brain or heart, requiring monitoring unavailable in prison.
In a parallel legal development, Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi have filed separate petitions through Barrister Salman Safdar challenging an IHC order that set a deadline to conclude arguments in their appeals against their corruption convictions.
The appeals pertain to the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust case, where an accountability court convicted the couple on January 31, 2024, sentencing Khan to 14 years and Bushra Bibi to seven years in prison.
The IHC had rejected their applications to suspend these sentences in May. The case involves allegations that the couple received billions of rupees and hundreds of kanals of land from Bahria Town Ltd to legalize Rs50 billion sent back to Pakistan by the United Kingdom (UK) during the PTI government. Khan has been imprisoned since August 5, 2023.
Barrister Safdar also filed applications protesting against jail authorities, alleging they are blocking access to his clients and refusing to facilitate the signing of vakalatnamas and power of attorney documents needed to appeal the April 30 order before the Supreme Court.
The counsel requested the IHC to order jail officials to permit an immediate meeting to secure the required signatures.
