In a major blow to Imran Khan, a top Pakistani court on Friday rejected petitions by the jailed former prime minister seeking post-arrest bail and the quashing of the FIR in the cipher case for allegedly leaking state secrets.

Khan, 71, was arrested in August after a case was filed against him for disclosing a secret diplomatic cable (cipher) sent by the country’s embassy in Washington in March last year. A special court in Pakistan on Monday indicted him along with his close ally ex-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in the case.

Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, had approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) with the pleas for bail in the case as well as against the FIR which was registered by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in August.

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq after the conclusion of the hearing had reserved judgment on October 16 which he announced on Friday.

The written verdict issued by the court declared both petitions as “without merit” and were “accordingly dismissed”, the Dawn newspaper reported.

“It is clarified that any observations, made hereinabove, are tentative in nature and shall not prejudice learned trial court during the trial,” the judgement emphasised.

On the matter of the plea seeking dismissal of the case, it stated that the petitioner had the “efficacious and alternate remedy by way of moving an appropriate application” under section 249-A (power of magistrate to acquit accused at any stage) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

“Moreover, the petitioner is co-accused in the case and even if the arguments advanced for quashing of FIR on his behalf are accepted, FIR cannot be quashed in as much as there are other co-accused and there cannot be a partial quashing of FIR,” the verdict said, referring to the fact that the FIR had named multiple people named.

Referring to a previous Supreme Court verdict, the IHC said it showed that “contents of the cipher were such that they only called for demarche and not any further strict action, as there was no conspiracy of any kind”, the paper said.

Noting that the punishment for the offence committed under section 5(1)(a) (wrongful communication, etc of information) of the Official Secrets Act was “death or imprisonment up to fourteen years”, the IHC said it attracted the prohibitory clause of section 497 (when bail may be taken in case of non-bailable offence) and “there does not exist any ground for further inquiry”.

“The case law cited by the petitioner for grant of bail in the facts and circumstances is not relevant in as much as undoubtedly the evidence is all documentary but according to the prosecution, the copy of cipher is still in the custody of the petitioner and […] where allegations are serious and prima facie link the accused with the commission of the offence, bail is to be denied in case of Official Secrets Act, 1923," according to the court order.

The case is about a document sent by Pakistan's embassy in Washington in March 2022 that Khan tried to use for political purposes by saying that it was proof of a foreign conspiracy to orchestrate his ouster from power in April last year.

Khan, who served as prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022, is accused of misusing the contents of the cipher to build a narrative that his government was ousted due to a conspiracy hatched by the US, a charge denied by Washington.

Khan and Qureshi have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on September 30 presented the charge sheet against Khan and Qureshi who signed its copies.

On Thursday, the Islamabad High Court rejected Khan's petition challenging his indictment in the case.

The court was earlier set to indict Khan on October 17, but it delayed it after Khan’s lawyers objected that he was not provided with copies of the chargesheet.

The cipher reportedly went missing from Khan's possession. Khan had repeatedly said before and after the no-confidence motion against him last year that the cipher pointed to a conspiracy to remove him from the prime minister’s office.

Khan was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in April 2022. He was incarcerated on August 5 this year, after an Islamabad court sentenced him to three years in prison in the Toshakhana case. The PTI chief was lodged in the Attock District Jail to serve his prison term.

Later, his sentence was suspended by the Islamabad High Court, but then he was arrested in the cipher case and remained in the Attock jail on judicial remand. He was later shifted to Adiala jail.

More than 150 cases have been registered against Khan since his ouster from power in April last year.

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