ISLAMABAD, April 25: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed a senior police officer to submit a fresh statement after rejecting his submissions as he was apologising as well as contesting the charge of committing the contempt of court by roughing up Chief Jus-

tice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

A three-member bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and Justice Nasirul Mulk, took up the inquiry report of Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan of the Peshawar High Court on the manhandling of the suspended chief justice who had been prevented from marching to the apex court to attend the Supreme Judicial Council proceedings.

At the last hearing, the Supreme Court had framed amended charges against seven senior administration and police hierarchy of Islamabad, including Islamabad Chief Commissioner Khalid Pervaiz, Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Ali, Inspector General of Police Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmad, Senior Superintendent of Police Capt (retd) Zafar Iqbal, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jamil Hashmi, Secretariat Police Station SHO Rukhsar Mehdi and ASI/security guard to IGP Siraj Ahmad. They were indicted under section 3 and 5 of the Contempt of Court Ordinance V of 2003.

On Wednesday, the acting chief justice asked DSP Jamil Hashmi to come to the rostrum and observed that his unconditional apology was not acceptable since he was throwing himself at the mercy of the court but at the same time he was maligning the judiciary in his reply.

“Who will cleanse the filth you have thrown on judiciary,” the bench asked.

At this, Advocate Ibrahim Satti, representing the DSP, started reading the statement but he was stopped by the bench saying he was actually contesting the charges.

The bench observed that in its opinion the reply did not constitute unconditional apology as the officer was justifying his actions. At this, the counsel withdrew the earlier explanation.The court directed him to file a fresh reply within a week and adjourned the proceedings.