ISLAMABAD: An accountability court was requested on Friday to proceed against federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry for predicting outcome of the pending references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

While appearing in the accountability court before the start of proceedings in the Flagship Investment reference, Advocate Zubair Khalid, counsel for Mr Sharif, drew attention of Judge Mohammad Arshad Malik towards Mr Chaudhry’s statement that Mr Sharif had to go to jail.

“How could a minister make such a claim?” wondered the defence counsel, while arguing that this was something against the prestige of the court.

Judge Malik responded by saying that he was not watching TV nowadays. When Advocate Khalid produced a transcript of the news report about Mr Chaudhry’s claim, the judge said he could file an application against the minister if he wanted to.

Accountability court tells Nawaz’s lawyer to file application

As the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, empowered judges to take action against contemners, the counsel requested the court to proceed in this matter on its own. He said Section 16-B of the NAO stated: “The court shall have the power to punish for contempt of court with imprisonment for a term that may extend to six months and with fine which may extend to one million rupees any person who — abuses, interferes with or obstructs the process of the court in any way or disobeys any order or direction of the court; scandalizes the court or otherwise does anything which tends to bring the court or a person constituting the court into hatred, ridicule or contempt; does anything which tends to prejudice the determination of a matter pending or most likely to come up before the court; or does anything, which, by any other law, constitutes contempt of court.”

Later talking to Dawn, Khawaja Haris Ahmed, lead defence counsel for the ex-premier, said he would carefully examine the transcript of the programme where Mr Chaudhry made such a claim before filing an application.

However, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) special prosecutor Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi told the court that the prosecution believed the case against the ex-premier was very strong and he would eventually be convicted after conclusion of the trial.

Advocate Khalid reminded Mr Abbasi that the job of a special prosecutor was to assist the court. It was not “persecution” but the “prosecution”, he remarked.

The accountability court is conducting trial of Mr Sharif in the Al-Azizia and Flagship references. The former premier, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law retired Captain Mohammad Safdar were convicted in another NAB reference related to Avenfield apartments, on July 6. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) last month suspended the sentence and ordered their release on bail.

After the court’s proceeding, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) spokesperson said it appeared that two parallel courts were conducting the trial of the former PM. She said one of them was being headed by Judge Arshad Malik, while the other was led by PTI minister Fawad Chaudhry. It seemed Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet members still felt as if they were standing on the containers which had been placed at D-Chowk some years ago in an attempt to overthrow the previous PML-N government, she said.

She said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government also levelled false allegations against all opposition parties and demanded that the relevant quarters take notice of the claims.

Published in Dawn, October 27th , 2018

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