ISLAMABAD: Declaring reply of Imran Khan unsatisfactory, Islamabad High Court (IHC) today decided to indict PTI Chairman on September 22 in contempt of court case for threatening a female judge Zeba Chaudhry.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah said, “Imran Khan’s response was unsatisfactory.” Chief Justice of IHC is heading a five-member bench — comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangir, and Justice Babar Sattar which heard the case on Thursday.
Once the court took a five-minute break after the reservation of the verdict, Imran Khan asked the court if he could speak. At this, the IHC CJ said that the court had heard the arguments of his lawyers.
“I want to give my stance; the court can question me,” Khan said, but the IHC did not listen to the PTI chairman.
In August, the court had taken notice of the former prime minister’s speech at a public rally, where he allegedly threatened Islamabad additional sessions judge Zeba Chaudhry for extending PTI leader Shahbaz Gill’s remand and initiated contempt of court proceedings against Imran Khan.
At the last hearing, the IHC chief justice had asked Khan to ensure that he submits a “well-considered” response in seven days to the show-cause notice, otherwise the court would have its way.
In his first response to the IHC’s show-cause notice in the case, the PTI chairman did not apologise, but offered to take back his remarks against the judicial officer “if they were inappropriate.”
In his latest response, which was a 19-page-long document, the PTI chairman seemingly opted to tell the court that it should discharge the notice based on his explanation and follow the Islamic principles of forgiveness.
However, in both responses, the PTI chairman did not offer an unconditional apology, which ultimately led to the court taking the decision despite amici curiae suggesting that the former prime minister be forgiven.
