Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan appeared on Friday before the court of Additional Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry to apologise to her, following remarks made at a rally that lead to contempt proceedings, but found that the judge was on leave.

Last week, the Islamabad High Court deferred contempt proceedings against Imran Khan after he offered to apologise to Chaudhry for his controversial remarks.

"You have to tell Madam Zeba Chaudhry that Imran Khan had visited and wanted to apologise if any of his words hurt her sentiments," he can be seeing telling the judge's reader in a video posted by PTI's official Twitter handle.

On August 23, a three-judge bench had issued a show cause notice to Imran over his remarks against Additional Sessions Judge, Islamabad.

A five-member larger bench, headed by Chief Justice Athar Minallah and comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb, Justice Babar Sattar, and Justice Tariq Mehmood Jehangri then heard the case.

IHC defers Imran Khan’s indictment in contempt case

In its written order, the court observed that Imran Khan admitted that he “may have crossed a red line”.

“He wanted to assure the Honourable Judges of this Court that he was willing to clarify before the Honourable Judge of the District Court that neither he nor his party sought any action against the Honourable Judge of District Court and that he would willingly apologize to the Honourable Judge if she felt that the respondent had crossed a line.”

The court noted in its order that the former premier promised never to repeat actions in the future that would hurt the dignity of the judiciary.

In view of Imran’s response, the court said that it was “satisfied with the apology rendered by the respondent”.