Lahore High Court Rejects Request to Combine All May 9 Cases Against Fawad Chaudhry

Lahore – In a major ruling, Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh of the Lahore High Court has dismissed a petition filed by former federal minister Fawad Chaudhry seeking the consolidation of all cases registered against him in connection with the May 9 violence.
The two-member bench, comprising Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh and Justice Shahbaz Rizvi, issued a 16-page detailed verdict, stating that cases with differing circumstances and incidents cannot be combined for a single trial. The court ruled that Article 13-A of the Constitution, which prohibits double jeopardy, applies only when a person has been convicted or declared guilty, which is not the case here.
The verdict highlighted that following the no-confidence motion in 2022 which led to the removal of PTI founder Imran Khan from the office of Prime Minister, the party initiated a campaign of resistance that plunged the country into a deep crisis. It also noted the violent protests that erupted across major cities such as Lahore, Karachi, Multan, Faisalabad, and Sargodha on May 9, 2023, after Khan’s arrest, with PTI supporters allegedly targeting army installations and public property.
According to the judgment, multiple FIRs were filed in different cities in connection with these incidents. In Lahore alone, 11 separate cases were registered. Fawad Chaudhry is accused of inciting violence through social media, with allegations of him being named in supplementary reports across various cities.
The court emphasized that each FIR relates to a distinct incident with different times, locations, and accused individuals. Therefore, the request to consolidate them into a single trial was not legally viable. The judgment did leave room for trial judges to merge cases under Section 239 of the Criminal Procedure Code if they find sufficient similarities.
The court also clarified that Fawad Chaudhry’s case could not rely on precedents like that of Sanam Javed, as the circumstances were different.
Fawad Chaudhry served as a federal minister under the PTI government from 2018 to 2022.