Contempt plea filed in LHC against Imran for ‘undermining courts’

LAHORE: A citizen has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC), seeking contempt proceedings against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan for allegedly undermining the judiciary.

In his plea filed on Saturday, Mushkoor Hussain said that PTI workers across the world ran a campaign against judges and defamed them after a Supreme Court’s five-member bench had nullified National Assembly’s former deputy speaker Qasim Suri’s ruling to dismiss the no-confidence motion against then-prime minister Khan and the subsequent dissolution of the assembly by President Dr Arif Alvi on the ex-premier’s advice.

The top court had ordered then-NA speaker Asad Qasier to summon the session on April 9 and hold voting on the no-trust motion against the premier.

“Since his government was ousted through a vote of no confidence in Apr 2022, Imran Khan Niazi resorted to various themes mostly contradicting each other to justify that his constitutional ouster was not result of lack of majority in National Assembly rather was result of a conspiracy,” read the petition.

Referring to the riots during the PTI leader’s recent appearance in the LHC and courts in Islamabad, the petitioner said it was “so articulated as if an out-of-law act has been committed by honorable judges by calling Imran Khan to courts. An organised rally was arranged to undermine courts in Lahore as well as in Islamabad.”

Hussain said that Khan’s act of appearing with a mob of people, damaging public buildings, and chanting slogans clearly amounts to contempt of the judiciary.

On February 28, the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Police registered a terrorism case for alleged vandalism, riot, and sabotage at the capital’s judicial complex during Khan’s appearance before different courts in connection with multiple cases filed against him.

Security arrangements at Sector G-11 of the judicial complex were disrupted as PTI workers removed all barriers during their chief’s appearances in different courts. On the occasion, some of the workers vandalised the building and undermined the decorum of the courts.

According to a spokesperson for the ICT police, the case had been registered under Section 7 of the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) and other charges on the behalf of the state. The petition urged the court to imitate contempt proceedings against the PTI chief in view of the incidents.