Contempt plea against PM: Sindh High Court reserves judgement

Civil rights campaigner had moved the court against the premier.

KARACHI: A Sindh High Court (SHC) bench on Wednesday reserved its order on the maintainability of an application for initiating contempt proceedings against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over his allegedly defamatory remarks about judges.

Justice Farooq Shah will announce the verdict later.

Civil rights campaigner Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi had moved the court against the premier for allegedly making inappropriate remarks about Karachi judges before the media.

In his October 12 application, the petitioner pleaded before the court to proceed against Nawaz Sharif for contempt.

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

Media reports suggested that Nawaz 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, Kazim Abbas Rizvi.

“Prime Minister Nawaz’s remarks were tantamount to ridiculing the honourable judges and committing contempt of the honourable court,” claimed Naqvi in his plea.

He had asked the court to call the entire records relating to 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.

Earlier, a single bench, headed by the Justice Farooq Shah, had referred the matter to the chief justice to form a larger bench to hear the contempt plea.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2013.