The Islamabad High Court has adjourned the hearing of Imran Khan’s petition seeking suspension of his three-year jail term after an ECP lawyer failed to show up.

The hearing, which began on Thursday on orders from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, had offered a ray of hope for Khan’s supporters. They believed the court may pass an order for Khan’s release today.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan had told the IHC on Wednesday to hear the petition and warned that if nothing happened in the IHC, it would pass an order by 2pm on Thursday.

The top court duly met on Thursday but adjourned until Monday saying it wanted to wait for an IHC order.

A two-member IHC bench, headed by its Chief Justice Aamir Farooq, heard arguments from Khan’s lawyer Latif Khosa and postponed the hearing until Friday when ECP Lawyer Amjad Pervaiz started his arguments.

Pervaiz was set to complete his arguments on Friday before the court could pass an order on the petition.

However, the ECP lawyer did not show up. His assistant told the court that he had fallen sick and the doctor had prescribed ‘bed rest.’

Justice Farooq said it would have barely taken ten to fifteen minutes to complete the arguments if Pervaiz had shown up.

Latif Khosa said a man has been incarcerated for the past 20 days and the court should suspend the sentence if the lawyer is not showing up.

He said Pervaiz’s assistant was present in the court and could have stood for him to complete the arguments.

IHC Chief Justice said that the high court was not going to repeat what the trial court had done.

He was referring to the claim that the sessions court that sentenced Khan to jail had completed the trial in haste.

Justice Farooq said the high court would look into the claims about haste as an administrative issue, but it was dealing with the remaining issues separately and would hear the petition on Monday.

Latif Khosa then left the rostrum in protest.

The justice said that two wrongs do not make a right and that the high court would not do what the trial court had done.

He then postponed the hearing until Monday.

Khosa walked out of the courtroom as PTI supporters raised slogans.