Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Ke Saath: Invoking Article 6 part of SC verdict, says Khwaja Asif

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Defence Khwaja Muhammad Asif said on Thursday that initiating action against Imran Khan and others under Article 6 was not a plan of the coalition federal government but part of the Supreme Court verdict, which suggested that the parliament could file references against former premier if it deemed necessary.

Speaking in Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Ke Saath’, he said he would give his opinion on the issue in the parliament. He said all political parties must develop a consensus on the issue why the situation had reached such a point that politicians were talking of initiating Article 6 proceedings against other politicians, though dictators evaded it every time.

Kh Asif said the PTI cabinet had approved Article 6 proceedings against him, and the then education minister Shafqat Mahmood had held a press conference against him in that regard. But, he added, he would not like to pay them in the same coin. He said Article 6 proceedings might not be initiated against them, but they would have to pay a price for the disgrace they brought to the parliament.

However, he said Imran Khan committed every wrong thing with this country during the past four years. He provided his close people with every opportunity to commit corruption. He destroyed Pakistan during this period, and even today he wanted chaos in the country.

Kh Asif said it had always been his well-thought-out viewpoint that there should not be any interference in the government affairs from any other institution including establishment and judiciary. But Imran Khan did not believe in it. He said it time and again that the institutions should interfere but in his favour, and they should support him in running the government. And when they did not support him, he hurled abuses at them, the minister said, adding that “he (Imran) had become so bitter that he has lost his mental equilibrium”.

To a question by programme host Shahzeb Khanzada, the defence minister admitted that various transgressions had been committed against the Constitution and democratic system of the country. But now, he said, the state institutions were making attempts to set things right. The courts were correcting their past decisions and compensating for their wrong verdicts. The establishment had become neutral, as they say, and they were not interfering in the political process, he added. But Imran Khan demands that all institutions should stand with him in all his decisions. Even then, Kh Asif said, he and his party were ready to talk to every political force including Imran Khan’s party to take the country forward. He said all institutions should hold a broader dialogue to find solutions to the gigantic problems afflicting the country currently.

Earlier, anchorperson Shahzeb Khanzada, commenting on the SC verdict, said that after rejection of ex-PM Imran Khan’s foreign conspiracy narrative by the National Security Committee and the Army, the apex court had also thrown it out. He said the PTI had been giving contradictory statements in the near past. Now, it is claiming that “the establishment has developed a taste for making political decisions in the country”. But earlier, it had been demanding the establishment to side with it against its political opponents.

Fawad Chaudhry severely criticised the court verdict says, “This can no longer occur that judges and generals make decisions behind closed doors.” Shahzeb Khanzada asked the former minister which judges and which decisions Fawad Ch was talking of. He said the same judges, who gave the current verdict, had given decisions in favour of Imran Khan in the past. Justice Ijazul Ashen was member of the bench, which had declared Nawaz Sharif ineligible to hold the PM office. He was appointed to oversee Nawaz Sharif cases hearing. Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijazul Ashen were members of the bench which declared Nawaz Sharif ineligible for life under Article 62/1-F. Justice Bandial was part of the bench was declared Imran Khan ‘Sadiq and Ameen’. Justice Ijazul Ashen was a member of the bench which regularised Bani Gala.

When the SC gave a ruling in Article 63/A case that the vote of dissident MNAs would not be counted, Imran Khan had praised the SC judges and requested that they should themselves hear corruption cases against the Sharif family. But, now when the same judges gave a verdict against the PTI, Imran Khan and his ministers were criticising them.