LHC constitutes larger bench to hear contempt of court petition against Zardari

LHC had asked President Zardari to stop using the presidency for politicking.

LAHORE: The Chief Justice of Lahore High Court (LHC) constituted a five-member larger bench to hear the contempt of court petition against President Asif Ali Zardari for not ending his political activities as advised by the court.

The bench will be headed by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and includes Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh, Justice Sheikh Najamul Hasan, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Sayed Mansoor Ali Shah.

The bench will hear the case on September 5.

The petition against Zardari was moved by Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique through his Advocate AK Dogar.

Calling the president’s activities a violation of the LHC full bench order, Dogar argued that Zardari has not disassociated himself from his political office as expected by the court in its decision on the president’s dual office.

“Directions issued by the court were not obeyed nor did he [Zardari] stop misusing the presidency for his political purposes,” he said.

Dogar said president’s actions confirmed his biasness as a leader of a political party - referring to an incident when he invited National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza to the presidency and congratulated her for her judgement over former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s disqualification case.

He prayed to the court that the president should be served a show-cause notice, charged, convicted and sentenced for contempt of court as per the Contempt of Court Ordinance, 2003.