The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday ordered Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal to appear before the court on May 30 in a contempt case filed against him for an “anti-judiciary speech” made in April. As the hearing went under way, counsel for interior minister Azam Nazir Tarar told the three-member bench that the minister was in Saudi Arabia, due to which he could not appear before the court, but will be present in the next hearing. Iqbal had not appeared in the last hearing as well since he was undergoing treatment after being shot earlier this month. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority’s representative submitted the transcript of Iqbal’s alleged defamatory speech to the court. A petition against the interior minister was filed in the LHC after he made a speech at a seminar last month where he had criticised Chief Justice Saqib Nisar for allegedly levelling baseless allegations against him, saying that the latter had “no right to name-call people”. Published in Daily Times, May 25th 2018.