Contempt of court: SC rejects defence secretary’s intra-court appeal

Top court asks Yasin Malik to raise his objections before the trial court.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed Defence Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Asif Yasin Malik’s Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) against contempt of court proceedings and asked him to raise his objections before the trial court.

A five-member bench headed by Justice Nasirul Mulk heard the case and dismissed it after hearing the arguments of the counsel for the defence secretary, Senior Advocate Syed Iftikhar Gilani.

“We will not like to pass any comment on the objections raised before this court as you still have the opportunity to raise objections before the trial court,” said Justice Nasirul Mulk while dismissing the appeal after a five-minute interval.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on November 5 indicted the federal secretary for Ministry of Defence, for non-compliance of the court’s orders in failing to hold local government elections in the Cantonment boards. Against this decision, the defence secretary had filed an ICA.



Counsel for the defence secretary argued that the secretary was not authorised to conduct the local bodies’ polls, adding that his client’s apology should have been accepted as he had done all in his capacity.

Iftikhar Gilani requested the court to set aside the contempt of court proceedings order against the defence secretary, to which Justice Nasir questioned if the attorney was asking to quash the entire proceedings.

Gilani said the order of October 25 should be withdrawn and added that in the first place, the charges should not have been framed, as it was not his client’s intention to avoid implementation of the order. The counsel argued that his client was like a layman who was powerless in conducting polls, a statement that the Justice dismissed by saying that he could not call a federal secretary a layman.

The defence counsel further pointed out that the Election Commission had also requested to postpone elections whereas the Parliament had passed resolutions for not holding the LG elections in haste and thus in the changed scenario, the court should set aside the previous judgment and grant pardon to his client. However, the bench said that since the secretary had himself undertaken the responsibility of conducting elections and tendered an apology when he was unable to hold them, the court could not buy the argument.

The counsel contended that the commitment was made on behalf of the executives to which the court questioned if the secretary himself was not part of the executive. Gilani replied that under the rules of business, the ultimate authority is the prime minister, and that his client had committed to the court only after the advocate general’s advice.

The court, however, questioned if the secretary was unaware of the consequences of not fulfilling the commitment made. Justice Nasir contended that the notice was issued to Yasin Malik who could have raised objections in the preliminary hearings, which he did not.

Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry, another member of the bench however said that instead of putting up a case before this bench, the appellant should take his case to the trial court.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2013.