The Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice has said that no one in the country enjoys immunity from contempt proceedings while referring to a contempt of court petition against President Asif Ali Zardari.
Heading a five-member larger bench, the chief justice said on Thursday that complying with court orders was binding on every citizen and no one could defy them under the pretext of immunity.
The bench was hearing a petition seeking contempt proceedings against the president for not relinquishing the political post of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairperson while in the presidential office in compliance with an LHC full-bench order issued last year.
Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh, Justice Sheikh Najamul Hassan, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah were the other members of the larger bench.
The bench, however, asked the petitioner’s counsel to convince the court whether Article 248(2) of the Constitution was applicable in the current case.
Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial asked A K Dogar, the petitioner’s counsel, to define whether the nature of these contempt proceedings was criminal, civil or sui generis during the next hearing.
Earlier, the bench turned down a request of the federal government to adjourn the hearing due to unavailability of its counsel, Wasim Sajjad. Additional Advocate General Abdul Hayi Gilani also tried to seek adjournment saying that the attorney general (AG) was out of the city and would not be able to attend the proceedings on Thursday.
However, LHC Chief Justice Bandial replied that the court had already asked the AG and the federation’s counsel to file their objections, if any, against this petition — which were not filed.
Advocate Dogar argued that the absence of the government’s counsel would have no effect on the proceedings since the government was not a necessary party in the case but a proforma respondent — claiming that the federation was merely trying to delay the proceedings.
He read out the Supreme Court’s judgment against the Contempt of Court Act 2012 and tried to convince the bench that constitutional immunity under Article 24(2) was not a hurdle to punish a president for committing the offence of contempt of court. He added that the apex court had declared that lower courts could punish any person who committed contempt.
During the hearing, the additional attorney general objected to the proceedings in the absence of the federal government’s counsel. He asked the chief justice to adjourn the hearing since there was no counsel standing on the other side to counter the arguments of the petitioner’s counsel.
Consequently, the chief justice directed the additional AG to take his seat asserting that the arguments from the petitioner’s side were not against the federal government.
“The court wants to know what the Supreme Court had decided in the matter of immunity,” the chief justice said.
After the arguments, he adjourned the hearing till October 10.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ