The Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down an unconditional apology rendered by former law minister Babar Awan for allegedly ridiculing its orders. The court told his counsel that he could speak on the issue in relation to an unconditional apology once contempt charges were framed against Awan.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Athar Saeed resumed hearing of a suo motu notice taken on Babar Awan's address at a press conference held at PID on December 2 following an initial order of a larger bench of Supreme Court on memo issue.
Barrister Ali Zafar, the counsel for Babar Awan, said that his client had tendered a written apology which must be considered and further proceedings to frame contempt of court charges against him should be dropped.
Justice Ejaz Afzal, however, said: "Let the contempt charges be framed and then the bench would consider his apology." He said the bench could not say at this stage that they were not considering his apology and asked the counsel to address the issue as it would have bearing on the proceedings.
According to the counsel, it is not known in the judicial history of the country whether a court can still continue contempt proceedings against a person who has tendered an unconditional apology. Disagreeing with the counsel's stance, Justice Ejaz Afzal told him that there were a number of judgements over the issue.
According to the counsel, under sub section (2) of section 5 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003, "A person accused of having committed contempt of court may, at any stage, submit an apology and the court, if satisfied that it is bona fide, may discharge him or remit his sentence." Justice Ejaz told him that it was the discretion of the court to determine whether there was bona fide intention or not. If the bench was going to frame charges, it would mean further proceedings into the matter which would be a rare case after an apology had been tendered. The hearing was adjourned till Thursday.