Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday dismissed the contempt of court petition against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhary over his anti-judiciary statements, a private TV channel reported. The petitioner’s lawyer Salimullah Khan appeared before the court and said in his arguments that, “Fawad Chaudhary made derogatory statements against Additional Session’s Judge Zeba Chaudhary and also claimed that it is not possible to punish Imran Khan for contempt of court because he is a popular leader.” He maintained that the former information minister’s remarks were not only against a judge but rather against the entire judiciary, including the chief justice of Pakistan. “Hence, action in contempt of court should be taken against him,” he added. During the hearing, the court asked “what kind of contempt of court action can be taken against Fawad Chaudhry?” To this, Advocate Khan said that a criminal contempt action should be taken against the PTI leader. In its remarks, the judge said that there are two types of statements, which can fall under the charges of contempt of court. “Criticising judgments with political statements does not constitute for contempt of court. If contempt of court cases or actions would be based on such statements, we would have nothing else to do and will only deal with such cases all day,” he added. Subsequently, the court dismissed the application as inadmissible and concluded that the case the lawyer was referring to is already pending before the larger bench.