The Court Order, The Pushback, and Imran Khan's Long Wait for Relief

For weeks now, the question hanging over Islamabad has been pretty simple, really: will Imran Khan finally get the medical care his family’s been fighting for? On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said yes. By Wednesday, the government was already pushing back. And honestly, if you’ve been following this story for any length of time, that whiplash probably didn’t surprise you at all.

What the Court Actually Ordered

A three-judge bench, led by Justice Shahid Waheed, told authorities to move Khan from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad and to do it within 48 hours. It wasn’t just a transfer order, either. The court wanted a medical board set up too, five specialists in total, including his personal physician Dr Faisal Sultan and his sister Dr Uzma Khan. He’s meant to stay under observation until at least September 16. And maybe just as important for a man who’s had almost no contact with the outside world for years, his family gets weekly visits now, and he can actually speak to his sons on the phone.

Khan, 73, has been behind bars since August 2023. He was convicted in a string of cases he’s always maintained were politically driven, stemming from his fallout with the military and his removal from office back in 2022. His lawyers have spent months warning about serious vision loss in his right eye, and about how isolating his confinement has become. This wasn’t even the first time the court stepped in on this, back in February, similar concerns led to an order for an eye exam. So Tuesday’s ruling, in a lot of ways, felt like the endpoint of something that had been building for a while.

The Government’s Response: Not So Fast

And here’s where it gets messy. Just one day after the ruling, the Islamabad chief commissioner’s office filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review, or possibly withdraw, its own order. The government hasn’t said much publicly about why. But the effect is obvious, Khan’s hospital transfer is now on hold, waiting on more hearings, and given how slowly these things tend to move here, that could drag on for a while yet.

This isn’t new territory, unfortunately. The state and the judiciary have clashed over Khan’s treatment more than once before. Officials keep insisting he’s getting adequate care where he is, and they’ve resisted letting him choose his own facility, usually citing security concerns. Critics including several rights groups see a familiar pattern by now. Legal wins for Khan’s side keep showing up, sure. But they also keep getting challenged, appealed, or quietly stalled before they actually change anything on the ground.

PTI’s Reaction: Relief, Then Fresh Anger

Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, had welcomed Tuesday’s order as exactly the kind of relief they’d been demanding for months, maybe years at this point. Spokesman Naeem Haider Panjutha confirmed the details online, and lawyer Uzair Bhandari called it long-overdue recognition of what the party had been asking for. For a leader who’s now spent over three years in prison, even something as basic as a hospital stay felt, briefly, like a genuine win.

That feeling didn’t last. The government’s review petition landed like a gut punch almost immediately after, and PTI leaders wasted no time calling it out, more proof, they said, that the state has no real intention of letting Khan catch a break, even when the country’s highest court rules in his favour. Back in February, PTI lawmakers actually staged a protest outside the Supreme Court itself, demanding quicker hearings and better access to their leader. It says something about how much frustration has quietly built up inside the party over what they see as delay after delay after delay.

A Bigger Pattern

None of this exists in isolation, either. Khan is currently serving a 17-year sentence alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi, over corruption charges tied to state gifts, on top of an earlier 14-year sentence from the 190-million-pound case. He did get bail last year in eight cases connected to the May 9, 2023 unrest, which PTI celebrated at the time. But practically speaking, it changed nothing about his day-to-day reality, since he’s still locked up on the other convictions anyway.

What comes next really just depends on how fast, or how slow, the Supreme Court decides to move on the government’s review petition. For now, Khan is still sitting in Adiala Jail. His hospital transfer exists on paper, not yet in practice caught, once again, in that same familiar tug-of-war between courtroom and government office that’s defined most of his three years behind bars.