ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry urged the courts to conduct a speedy trial of corruption cases against the Sharif family and allow live telecast of case proceedings.

“We want Shehbaz Sharif’s case to be aired live... so that people should be made aware of the (details) of the case,” the minister expressed these views while addressing a news conference on Monday.

The minister also requested the chief justices of the courts to live telecast the hearings of the corruption cases against the Sharif family to enable the public to decide whether the former rulers were involved in any wrongdoing or not.

He accused the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Shehbaz Sharif, and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of plundering national wealth worth billions of rupees.

“The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders claimed that Pakistani law is not applicable to their sons who are residing in London when asked to explain the sources of their wealth,” he said.

PM Imran says poverty rate reduced during PTI government

He also maintained that the courts should announce the verdict in corruption cases without any “fear or influence”.

He said it was made clear that Nawaz attempted to influence court proceedings through former Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) judge Rana Shamim’s affidavit.

“This is a fit case to implicate Nawaz in Rana Shamim case for attempting to influence court proceedings,” he added.

He said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) inherited the country following a “decade of darkness,” and put it on the right track.

“Today we have achieved 5.37 percent economic growth despite the challenge of Covid-19 and today the entire world is following Pakistan’s strategy to control the pandemic,” he said, while referring to the government decision of not imposing complete lockdown during the peak of the contagious virus.

The minister said that the income of the masses has also increased during the PTI’s rule amid skyrocketing inflation and added that “agriculture and corporate sector have earned record profits”. He also urged private businesses to increase the salaries of their employees. He said that local government system introduced by the PTI government is a revolution for the empowerment of the public. He said that 18th amendment was not implemented in its true spirit. He said the 18th Constitutional Amendment was meant to devolve power to district level but unfortunately, the PML-N and the PPP kept it to the province level.

The minister said cities such as Karachi are suffering because power is not devolved to the district level. Answering a question, he said the PTI will soon finalise its nominations for mayors in the big cities.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022