Islamabad High Court Gives PTI More Time to Respond in Case Seeking Ban on Imran Khan’s X Account

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Thursday adjourned until November 23 a petition seeking the closure of the X account attributed to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan, after the party’s chairman, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, told the court that the PTI does not claim ownership of the account in question, according to Dawn.

Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir, who heard the petition filed by a citizen named Ghulam Murtaza, granted Gohar additional time to submit a written response. The PTI leader had appeared before the court in person, and the court observed that he had not been summoned and could have simply submitted his written response, according to an Associated Press of Pakistan report carried by TezKhabar.

Gohar informed the court that the party did not claim ownership of the X account. Citing a change in circumstances, he sought additional time to file a detailed response. The court allowed the request and directed him to submit the party’s position in writing, adjourning further proceedings until November 23.

Who was present at the hearing

According to the APP report, Barrister Gohar appeared before the court in person along with Imran Khan’s lawyers, Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry and Shamsa Kiyani, officials of the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), and other parties connected to the case.

The presence of the NCCIA, Pakistan’s national cybercrime investigation body, underlines how seriously the state is treating the matter. The agency has a direct stake in the dispute because the petition concerns the online activity of one of the country’s most-followed political figures, conducted from behind prison walls.

During the hearing, Justice Tahir noted that Barrister Gohar could have filed his response in writing rather than appearing in person. The observation, reported by both Dawn and the APP, suggested the court saw no procedural need for a personal appearance, though it did not object to Gohar’s presence.

What the petition is asking for

The petition, filed by Ghulam Murtaza, asks the court to order the closure of the X account attributed to Imran Khan. According to The Frontier Post’s account of the filing, the petitioner argues that posts being published from the profile are illegal and malicious, and he has asked the court to direct the removal of the content and the permanent blocking of the account.

The petitioner’s central contention is that inflammatory material is being published from the account while the PTI founder remains incarcerated, and that the state should act against it. In a parallel development, the federal government has confirmed that it is in communication with the social media platform X regarding the account, according to Minister of State for Law Barrister Aqeel Malik, who was quoted in The Frontier Post as saying that an official inquiry into the account’s activity is already underway and that any subsequent steps would depend on the investigation’s findings.

The case has had a long procedural tail. In earlier rounds, the court issued notices to the NCCIA, the superintendent of Adiala Jail, and other parties, seeking their replies. Previous hearings saw arguments over whether the PTI or its founder had even received the replies filed by other respondents, and the matter has been adjourned more than once, with lawyers seeking time to meet the incarcerated party founder in jail before submitting a formal response.

The FIA’s parallel cyber inquiry

Running alongside the court case is a separate cyber investigation into the same account. According to an ANI report citing Dawn, the Federal Investigation Agency’s Cyber Wing launched an inquiry into what it termed the misuse of Imran Khan’s verified X account, through which content described by the agency as highly objectionable and inciting against state institutions was shared.

The report said notices were issued to senior PTI figures, including Barrister Gohar, Omar Ayub, and another leader, directing them to appear before investigators to record their statements in their own defence. The notices warned that failure to appear could trigger proceedings under Section 174 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which covers non-attendance in obedience to an order from a public servant.

An FIA team also visited Adiala Jail to question Imran Khan about the post at the centre of the inquiry, according to the report. Imran declined to meet the investigators without his lawyer present, sources told ANI. The post in question, which the PTI later publicly owned, reiterated a call for people to read the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report and urged the military to operate within its constitutional limits.

That refusal to cooperate without legal counsel present, and the party’s decision to own the post rather than disown it, forms part of the backdrop to Thursday’s IHC hearing, where the question of who controls the account has now taken on a formal legal dimension.

Warrants issued in the 2014 sit-in cases

In a related development reported by Dawn from the same day, Judicial Magistrate Shaista Kundi issued arrest warrants for accused persons who failed to appear in cases registered against the PTI founder and others in connection with the 2014 sit-in.

Imran Khan could not be produced in court because he is currently incarcerated in Adiala Jail. The magistrate adjourned the proceedings until November 25 and directed that evidence be presented at the next hearing.

The 2014 sit-in, when the PTI and its allies staged a months-long protest in Islamabad against the then-government, remains a live legal front for the party’s leadership more than a decade later. The warrants illustrate how the legal pressure on Imran Khan spans not only his recent convictions but also cases dating back to the early years of his political career.

The imprisoned founder’s situation

Imran Khan, the 74-year-old former cricket star who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been in prison since 2023 after convictions in corruption-related cases and other charges. He denies the charges, and his family and party maintain that the cases are politically motivated.

His family and party have been demanding urgent medical intervention, citing what they describe as a deterioration in his health, including loss of vision in one eye and fluctuating blood pressure, according to a Reuters report published earlier this week. The government, in turn, has said that Khan is in good health and receives regular family visits, while maintaining that meetings with the imprisoned former leader cannot be used for political purposes.

Visits to Khan have been prohibited for months at a time, according to his family, and the question of access to him has become a recurring friction point. Earlier this week, the PTI issued a statement, reported by The Frontier Post, demanding an immediate meeting with the party founder and alleging that a medical check-up request has been pending since August 2025, claims the government has not publicly confirmed.

Those access claims could not be independently verified. What is confirmed is that the party’s communication channels with its founder are tightly restricted, which makes the X account — the digital megaphone attributed to him — all the more politically significant.

Analysis: Why It Matters

To understand why a single court hearing about a social media account matters, it helps to consider what that account represents. With Imran Khan in prison since 2023 and his physical access to the public cut off, the X account attributed to him has become the closest thing the PTI has to a direct, unfiltered channel between its founder and its supporters. Any ruling that closes or suspends it would sever one of the party’s most potent lines of political communication.

The significance of Thursday’s hearing lies less in the adjournment itself — routine in Pakistan’s courts — than in the legal position the PTI chose to put on the record. Barrister Gohar told a high court judge that his party does not claim ownership of the account. That is a carefully chosen formulation. It creates distance between the party and whatever is posted from the account, which matters because the state is simultaneously investigating posts it considers objectionable and inciting. If the account cannot be pinned to the party, the party cannot easily be held liable for its contents.

But the disavowal carries its own political cost. The account is followed by millions and treated by supporters as Imran Khan’s authentic voice. A party that publicly declines to claim it risks feeding speculation about who actually controls it — a question that critics are certain to exploit. Gohar’s request for more time, citing a change in circumstances, suggests the party is aware that its written response will be scrutinised as a definitive statement of position, not a throwaway courtroom line.

The state’s posture is equally deliberate. The government has confirmed it is in communication with X about the account, an official inquiry is underway, and the NCCIA is now a party to the court proceedings. Rather than attempting to shut the account down through executive action alone, the authorities are building a legal file: a petition before the high court, a parallel FIA cyber inquiry, and notices to party leaders under penal provisions. The message to the PTI is that the account’s activity is being documented, measured, and processed through institutions.

The 2014 sit-in warrants, issued the same day, reinforce the pattern. The legal calendar around Imran Khan is not a single case but a lattice of proceedings — corruption convictions, cyber inquiries, decade-old protest cases, and the account dispute — each moving on its own timeline. The PTI’s challenge is that it must fight on all of these fronts simultaneously, with its founder unable to appear in person and its leadership intermittently in custody.

There is also a constitutional dimension that is worth noting. Pakistan’s courts have been grappling with the question of how to regulate political speech online, and this case could produce an authoritative answer on whether a court can order the closure of a major political figure’s account on the basis of a private citizen’s petition. Whatever the IHC decides on November 23 and beyond will set a precedent that extends well past one account and one party.

What to watch next

1. The November 23 hearing: The most immediate question is what the PTI says in its written response. Will the party formally disown the account, mount a defence of it, or find a middle position that limits its legal exposure without alienating the supporters who treat the account as Imran Khan’s voice?
2. The November 25 sit-in hearing: Judicial Magistrate Shaista Kundi has directed that evidence be presented at the next hearing. Whether the prosecution moves forward and whether the warrants against non-appearing accused are executed will indicate how aggressively the decade-old sit-in cases are being pursued.
3. The cyber investigation’s findings: The FIA and NCCIA inquiries into the account’s activity remain unresolved. If they produce findings that are placed before the high court, the November 23 hearing could take a sharper turn than Thursday’s procedural round.
4. The platform’s response: The government’s confirmed communication with X adds an international dimension. Whether the platform takes any action on the account independently of Pakistani court orders will be closely watched, given the history of governments pressing social media companies over political content.
5. Access to the founder: The PTI’s demand for an immediate meeting with Imran Khan, citing health concerns, remains unanswered. How the jail authorities respond will shape the party’s rhetoric in the coming weeks, particularly as the court dates approach.

Sources

• Dawn — IHC seeks PTI response in case about Imran’s X account
• Associated Press of Pakistan via TezKhabar — IHC grants Barrister Gohar more time to submit reply in case seeking closure of Imran Khan’s X account
• The Frontier Post — background on the petition and the government’s engagement with X
• ANI via LatestLY — background on the FIA cyber inquiry into the account