Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will today (Tuesday) resume hearing in the contempt of court case against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former minister of state for interior Talal Chaudhry.

The case will be heard by a three-member bench comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmad, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Faisal Arab.

The court has already issued notices to 17 witnesses of Talal Chaudhry to appear today (Tuesday). Additional Attorney General, who is a prosecutor in the case, will also appear on court’s notice.

At the last hearing, the court had recorded the statements of two defence witnesses, out of total 17, in the contempt of court case against the former minister. Both the defence witnesses, who had testified in favour of Talal Chaudhry, were later cross examined by the prosecutor.

The court had directed Kamran Murtaza, senior counsel for Talal Chaudhry, to produce the remaining witnesses on June 19 so that the trial could be concluded.

Earlier on May 21, Talal Chaudhry had recorded his statement under Section 342 of Code of Criminal Procedure. He had requested the court to withdraw contempt charges against him by not casting doubts on his intentions about the dignity of the court.

He stated that he had neither uttered anything nor acted in a manner, which might be construed as causing obstruction to the process of the court in any way, or that any order of the court had been disobeyed.

He had contended that his January 24, 2018 press talk was edited with mala fide intention and many of his sentences were removed from the actual substance to make it controversial. He had stated that his January 27, 2018 speech was not against any of the judges. He had contended that the video of his speech that was kept on record was also edited with mala fide intention to spoil the actual and original context of his speech.

Talal was indicted on March 15, 2018, on contempt of court charges. Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had taken suo motu notice of Talal’s alleged derogatory and contemptuous statements and speeches at PML-N public gatherings against the apex court.

Published in Daily Times, June 19^th 2018.