Hateful statements against institutions: SC to hear petition for restraining IK, others today

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will hear a petition to restrain the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and the PTI leaders from making hateful statements against the institutions Thursday (Aug 4).

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Yahya Afridi will take up the petition of Qausain Faisal, advocate Supreme Court, seeking to restrain the PTI chairman and the PTI former ministers from making defamatory and derogatory statements in public or social media against the army, superior judiciary, and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, on July 18, removed the registrar office’s objections on Qausain’s petition and directed the office to fix it in the open court.

Qausain, on June 28, filed a petition in the apex court under Article 184 (3) of the Constitution, stating that since the removal of the PTI government, Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi, Fawad Chaudhry, Shireen Mazari, and PTI leaders have been issuing unfounded, provocative, highly defamatory, and derogatory statements in public interviews, political rallies or through various other means, in both print and electronic media, including social media, which are designed and calculated to tarnish the public image of the superior judiciary, armed forces, and the ECP.

Fawad Chaudhry, former Minister for Information, presently, PTI spokesman, Shireen Mazari, former Minister for Human Rights, and other party leaders of the PTI, in a very blatant manner, compromised the constitutional role of the armed forces under the Constitution and made them liable for political shenanigans to which the ISPR has issued time and again various statements denying any role of the armed forces in the politics of Pakistan.

Imran Khan has on several occasions asked the Armed Forces to their utter consternation, to take part in political wheeling and dealing terming it as a religious duty. The ex-PM and his cohorts have personally targeted the respectable Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) numerous times and have issued derogatory, personal and defamatory statements about the senior leadership of the Pakistan Army.

The ex-PM, on various occasions, termed the ECP, its chairman and the members as “agents” or “servants” of the Sharif family and as their “rubber stamps”, which called into question their efficacy and impartiality.

Imran Khan and his cohorts have, on various occasions, called into question, the freedom and impartiality of the Supreme Court of Pakistan as well as the High Courts of respective provinces and the Islamabad High Court, while dubbing the courts as “political institutions” and targeted individually, the judges of the superior judiciary of the country.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022