Defamation suit: Imran, his lawyer don’t appear before court

LAHORE: Counsel for Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Saturday told a sessions court that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was using delaying tactics to hinder the court proceedings in a defamation suit against him, according to a Geo News report.

Defamation suits should be decided in the stipulated time period of 90 days, the lawyer argued. The court then ordered both counsels to appear before it on the next hearing date i.e. April 21.

Imran’s lawyer Babar Awan continued to be a no-show in the case. In November last year, the Punjab chief minister had filed a petition seeking a swift verdict in the case.

The PTI chief, Imran Khan, in a public gathering last year, had claimed that Shahbaz had offered him Rs10 billion to stay silent on the Panama Papers case against the Sharif family.

The petition, filed in the court of Lahore Additional Sessions Judge Azfar Sultan under Sections 4 (defamation actionable) and 9 (remedies) of Defamation Ordinance, 2002, states that “the facts and circumstances giving rise to the filing of the instant suit are that since the last week of April 2017, the defendant [Imran Khan] started uttering, spreading and resorting to the publication, communication and circulation of maliciously false, baseless and unfounded oral statements and representations against the plaintiff [Shahbaz].”

Moreover, the petition stated that Imran Khan claimed Shahbaz “offered to pay a sum of Rs10,000,000,000 to the Defendant in exchange for his withdrawing/backing-off from, or remaining silent on the issue of the Panama Papers case.”