Daily Times

Minister of State for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Faisal Karim Kundi on Wednesday said that the Supreme Court was supposed to deliver justice and not to arrange talks.

Addressing a press conference here at Circuit House, the state minister said the judiciary was there to take decisions on the basis of justice and not on the basis of family pressure. “There was no room for recordings of private telephone calls of anyone in any independent state but unfortunately, it was being done in our country,” he said and demanded that the forensic investigations should be done into the matter that who was responsible for this illegal activity.

The recent two audio leaks including one of the mother-in-law of the sitting Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) and the other of the former chief justice Saqib Nisar posed many questions on the judicial system. Faisal Karim Kundi said that the negotiation and dialogue was a political process which was pursued by the political parties and even countries to resolve their differences and issues. He was of the view that Parliament was the right forum for the politicians to initiate dialogue among themselves for resolving issues.

He said that the allies of the coalition government had concerns regarding negotiations with PTI which were based on reality as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) never showed a serious attitude over the national issues. He mentioned that PTI leader Asad Qaiser himself contacted representatives of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) claiming to have the mandate of his party for talks. However, the claim was rejected by the PTI chairman who nominated other party representatives for the task, he said and added that it proved the PTI like non-serious attitude once again. He also mentioned that in the past, around 85 cases related to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) came before a specific bench, out of which the decisions of 83 cases were given in favor of the PTI.

He said the decisions of two remaining cases were pending including one related to the record corruption in the BRT project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which was given judicial protection. While the other case was related to the election results of the former deputy speaker of the National Assembly, on which despite of the presence of all the evidence, the decision on the case was not given until the completion of his term of deputy speaker. Expressing grief over the loss of lives in the recent Swat incident, he said the investigations into the matter were underway and the comments over it could be made after the finalization of its inquiry report.

He said the ISPR, in its last press briefing, once again clarified that it takes action on the directions of federal government. He termed ‘wrong policies’ of the previous PTI government as the reason behind the recent wave of terrorism in the country. He alleged engaging militants in talks resulted in allowing them to resettle in different areas of the country. Those who are responsible for the wrong doings must be held accountable, he added. He mentioned that Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was scheduled to visit India to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) meeting and he would also have sidelines meetings there.

He refuted the news being circulated on social media regarding cancellation of any meeting between Pakistan’s foreign minister and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, saying that there was not schedule for this meeting.

He said that PPP believed that the general elections of the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies should be held simultaneously as per the spirit of the Constitution. If the elections were allowed to be held in only Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it would affect the transparency of the general elections, he feared. He said, as per PTI chief Imran Khan, from the formation of the party to running the affairs of the government, PTI took decisions following the directions of Army generals.

He said the PTI chief was used to say that whoever left his party would not be able to go in public and today he himself was going outside by covering his face with a box.

He said that today, the country was facing different issues including economic, law and order and elections which would have to be resolved by the political parties. If the political parties would fail in giving roadmap for resolving these issues, then it would be their own loss, he added.