Contempt case filed against PM for saying Karachi judges afraid to give verdicts

Case referred to SHC CJ to decide if SHC can hear it.

KARACHI: A contempt petition filed against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over his alleged remarks about the judges has been referred to the Sindh High Court chief justice.

Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar will decide whether or not the petition is maintainable for hearing in the high court. A single bench, headed by the Justice Farooq Shah, referred the petition to the chief justice after a civil rights campaigner, Syed Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi, filed the contempt plea on October 12.

Naqvi had complained that the premier allegedly gave inappropriate remarks on the media about the judges in Karachi. In his plea, he said that the prime minister had stated that the judges were afraid to give verdicts under the prevailing law and order situation in Karachi.



He had referred to the remarks attributed to Sharif during the announcement of the special anti-terror force on October 10, wherein he was quoted as saying that the judges in the city of Karachi were too scared to decide terrorism cases under the prevailing law and order situation.

Media reports suggested that Sharif had given such a statement while referring to the murder trial of former special ATC prosecutor Naimat Ali Randhawa, who was allegedly killed by an activist belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Syed Kazim Abbas Rizvi.

“Nawaz’s remarks tantamount to ridiculing the honourable judges and committing contempt of the honourable court,” Naqvi claimed in his plea. He had pleaded the court to call the entire records on the country’s chief executive’s remarks and then initiate contempt proceedings against him under article 204 of the Constitution and the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003.

A day after the prime minister made these remarks, CJ Baqar had investigated the matter. According to official sources, the chief justice had called the presiding officer of the special anti-terrorism court, which is hearing the case, and the special public prosecutor, who is assigned the case trial, for separate meetings.

Justice Baqar had expressed satisfaction over the status of the trial after he was assured that there was no pressure on the incumbent ATC presiding officer as well as the prosecutor.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2013.