Pakistan, May 4 -- Islamabad High Court has rejected requests by former prime minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to suspend their sentences in the £190 million case. The court instead fixed their main appeals for hearing on May 7, moving the case forward without granting interim relief.

A division bench led by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Muhammad Asif decided to proceed directly with the main appeals. The court ruled that separate suspension applications were no longer necessary since the primary hearings had already been scheduled.

Moreover, the court disposed of the sentence suspension pleas as infructuous, meaning they lost relevance after the scheduling of the main appeals. The defence had ...