Babar Awan indicted in contempt case

Former law minister refuses to accept charges framed against him.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday indicted former law minister Babar Awan on contempt charges for “ridiculing the court and a sitting judge”.

An adamant Awan, however, refused to accept charges framed against him and said he expected the court to forgive him.

The court observed that on December, 2011 Awan had ridiculed the court and Justice Asif Saeed Khosa during a press conference soon after the formation of a judicial commission to probe the Memogate scandal. The words and tone and tenor of his speech were contemptuous, the bench, headed by Justice Ejaz Afza and comprising Justice Athar Saeed, observed.

Addressing the two-judge bench in the same court room where the prime minister was recently convicted, Awan said that he had addressed the conference at a time when he was the central leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and had, thus, presented his party’s stance.

“It was a historical point of view of the PPP, not of an individual,” he said, while reading from a written transcript of formulations.

The former minister said that he stood by his already tendered “bona fide apology” and “painful regret”. He added that during the press conference, leaders of the PPP, including him, had spoken out against their political opponents, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and had never intended to ridicule the Supreme Court or its judges.

With Attorney General Irfan Qadir and his counsel, Barrister Ali Zafar, by his side, Awan termed the court’s conduct discriminatory for initiating proceedings only against him out of the five participants of the press conference.

He further claimed that the transcript of the press conference which was sent to him by the court along with the initial notice was incomplete.

The former minister said that at present there is no law of contempt of court in the country. The attorney general told the court that he had already submitted during the prime minister’s contempt case that a contempt law does not exist in the country. The court asked him to present his arguments later and submit relevant documents before May 26. The case was adjourned till May 29.

Awan, however, sought more time and added that he was expecting the court to forgive him by the next hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2012.