Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday admitted a petition for hearing filed by the PTI’s Central Information Secretary, Dr. Shireen Mazari, against the Minister for Defence, Water and Power, Khawaja Asif for calling her a ‘tractor trolley’ during the National Assembly debate.

Justice Athar Minallah of the IHC heard Shireen Mazari’s appeal on objections raised by the Registrar’s Office of the IHC. Khawaja Asif used foul language against her on June 8.

The Registrar’s Office had objected to the petition and said that a matter related to Parliamentary proceedings couldn’t be discussed in a court.

On the other hand, the counsel for Mazari contradicted the objections and said this was a matter of defamation of his client.

After hearing the arguments, the court directed the Registrar’s Office to fix the case for regular hearing.

After more than three months of the incident, Dr Shireen Mazari had filed the case at the Islamabad High Court through her counsel Barrister Shoaib Razzaq.

The petitioner had contended in her plea that the Member National Assembly of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), Khawaja Asif, had used offensive remarks against her during the NA debate.

She said that the video and audio clips of the minister were available on the Internet and social websites.

She prayed the court to also direct the Speaker National Assembly, Ayaz Sadiq, to send the matter of disqualification of Khawaja Asif to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The petitioner had nominated the Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, the Speaker National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq and the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, as respondents.

It is worth mentioning here that using derogatory language specifically targeting the PTI’s leader Shireen Mazari, Asif pointed towards Mazari and said, “Someone make this tractor trolley keep quiet” when she and some other lawmakers protested to his speech on load shedding during a debate in the National Assembly in June.

“Make her voice more feminine,” he said, according to eyewitnesses. Another lawmaker chimed in from the government benches to say “Keep quiet, aunty.”