IHC moved against Fawad Chaudhry

The National Bank of Pakistan’s (NBP) staff union on Thursday filed a plea in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) for initiating contempt of court proceedings against Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry for criticising the court’s verdict in a tweet.

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani will take up the plea on Friday (today).

In a tweet earlier this week, the minister said the country would never be able to come out of its economic crisis unless judicial reforms were introduced.

"My head is spinning after reading about the decision to ban TikTok and remove the NBP president. What are our courts doing? The country has already suffered losses worth billions of dollars due to judicial activism," Fawad added.

In his petition, Union Chief Organiser Abdul Latif Qureshi prayed the court to summon Fawad Chaudhry and Finance Secretary Yousaf Khan, and NBP HR Group Chief Asima Sheikh and start the proceedings against them.

The petitioner said that both the president and the NBP Board of Directors chairman have not been removed yet as per the court orders, expressing apprehensions that they may tamper with the record of “irregularities”.

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Earlier, the Sindh High Court banned the popular video-sharing platform in the country over "immoral content" and for celebrating "LGBTQ-Pride Month".

An SHC bench issued this order while hearing a “suit of declaration and injunctions” in which the petitioner had nominated the federal government, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and TikTok as respondents.

A few days ago, the high court had set aside the appointments of NBP President Arif Usmani and BoD Chairman Zubair Soomro.

According to the petitioner, the appointments were made in violation of the constitutional rights that ensured equal opportunity for every citizen.

The bench observed that it was necessary to issue an advertisement for the appointment of the board chairman under the law.

The IHC bench, through a short order, accepted the petition, saying that the appointments of NBP president and BoD chairman had been made in violation of the law.