A day in custody: High court sends petitioner to jail for 24 hours

Shahid Orakzai had submitted a contempt of court plea against the prime minister, PHC chief justice.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday handed 24-hour imprisonment to a petitioner for not proving the allegations in his contempt of court petition against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and PHC Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel.

The sentence was handed by a single-member bench of Justice Yahya Afridi during the hearing of a contempt petition filed by Shahid Orakzai, who claimed the prime minister secretly interfered in the murder case of the petitioner’s elder brother, Major (retd) Khalid Saeed Orakzai, which has been pending since 1997.

The court told the petitioner to either withdraw the case as it was not maintainable or tender an apology, but the petitioner did not do so. This led to his imprisonment for 24 hours.



During the course of Monday’s hearing, the bench was informed by Orakzai that the case of his brother was earlier scheduled to be heard on September 1, 2014 by a single-member bench headed by Justice Qaiser Rashid. However, the hearing was adjourned till September 5 because the defence counsel was absent due to a strike announced by the Pakistan Bar Council.

Orakzai told the court that the cause list for September 5 also displayed the titled case and that the office of the court had no authority to alter the date or the bench. However, on September 5, the PHC chief justice observed that the shifting of the case was an “internal matter”.

Orakzai claimed that shifting the hearing to another bench was tantamount to contempt of court and proceedings should thus be initiated against the respondents, the prime minister and the high court chief justice.

The petitioner, however, failed to state any relevant law when the court asked the petitioner whether he could cite any rules or provisions of law under which the court could proceed with the contempt plea.

Barrister Waqar, who was made amicus curia, told the court it was a regular practice at the high court for a hearing to be shifted to another bench after one issued notices. He argued this did not amount to contempt of court.

Waqar then referred to Article 204 of the Constitution which empowers the Supreme Court or high court to punish any person who does anything against the court.

Sub article 2(b) of the said article says the court shall have the power to punish any person who “scandalises the court or otherwise does anything which tends to bring the court or a judge of the court into hatred, ridicule or contempt”.

The bench asked Barrister Waqar what the court could do in this case if the allegations were not proven. Upon this, he replied saying the court had the authority to take action against the petitioner.

The court then told the petitioner to withdraw the case or tender an apology for filing the petition and failing to prove the allegations against the respondents. Orakzai, however, did not do so.

The court then said the petitioner had failed to prove the allegations and should thus be imprisoned for 24 hours.

Orakzai claims in his contempt petition that the criminal petition would have been decided in favour of the petitioner on September 5, but instead, was indefinitely adjourned by the respondent, the chief justice. He stated that in view of the circumstances, the transfer of the murder case was “naked interference” in light of Article 204 of the Constitution and Section 3 of Contempt of Court Ordinance, 2003.

The petitioner also said that neither the Supreme Court nor the high court had ever denied the fact that the murder in 1997 was a direct consequence of a monetary dispute resulting from a 1993 horse-trading deal between the petitioner and the respondent prime minister involving payment of Rs10.5 million to Fata MNAs.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2014.