Evidence to be presented before court, says Mazari

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Central Information Secretary Dr Shireen Mazari criticised former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s letter to the Speaker National Assembly on the issue of the PTI MNAs return to the legislature.
She said, “This proves once again that Chaudhry was always a part of Nawaz Sharif’s team. Even a cursory look at his record of actions relating to the Sharifs makes this abundantly clear”.
Mazari noted that, for instance, he gave a Supreme Court stay order that kept Shahbaz Sharif as Punjab Chief Minister for 5 years in Punjab before the 2013 elections. She said that again, it was strange how CJ Chaudhry actively pursued many corruption cases against some leaders as well as the NRO case, and castigated a number of NAB chairmen for not being active enough but he never took up a single case out of the many lying with NAB against the Sharifs.
She recalled in the Asghar Khan case, once the evidence had come before him of the money that was doled out, he took no action except simply telling the FIA to inquire into the issue. He did not follow up with the FIA and let the whole case effectively be shelved. In the 2013 elections, she charged he especially chose to address the ROs, which was unprecedented action by a SC CJ. After the 2013 elections, he held a special function as CJ for the ROs congratulating them on their role in the elections.
Mazari contended while taking suo moto actions on all manner of trivial issues, as CJ Chaudhry refused to act on the petition filed by the PTI chairman to investigate rigging in four constituencies. Instead he tried, unsuccessfully, to scare the PTI chairman by issuing him with a contempt notice.
She pointed out that now even PM Nawaz Sharif, in his speech in Haripur on April 9 admitted that he knew about rigging but kept quiet so the question was how a PM could keep quiet when he knew wrongdoing had taken place.
In addition, Mazari reminded that during his tenure as CJ, the corruption evidence against his son Arsalan was ignored even as it kept coming to the fore in the media along with documentary evidence. “PTI would prove, in the defamation case filed by Chaudhry against the PTI chairman that Arsalan was acting as a front man for his father,” she charged.
“PTI will bring all these points up with proof during the hearing of the defamation case filed by Chaudhry Iftikhar against the PTI chairman as well as proving that the ex-CJ was complicit with Ramday in electoral rigging,” she concluded.