LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has urged the
Supreme Court to initiate contempt proceedings against former prime
minister Nawaz Sharif for passing rude remarks about the recent
decisions of the apex court.
“Nawaz Sharif, while
expressing reservations over the Supreme Court verdict in the Imran Khan
case, used harsh words for the judiciary by saying that Sikh monarchy —
a reference to an era of oppression in Punjab history — won’t be
tolerated,” PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira said at a press conference on
Wednesday.
“There could be no worse abuse of the
judiciary than this,” he said and asked the judges to act against the
PML-N president by saying “what else does the Supreme Court need to
begin contempt proceedings against the disqualified prime minister?”
Cautioning
the judges that if they “don’t act, each Tom, Dick and Harry would
start abusing them” after losing their legal cases, he recalled that the
PPP government’s prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had been sent home
in a contempt case for refusing to accept an “unconstitutional order”.
PML-N chief’s ‘Sikh monarchy’ remarks are abuse of judiciary, says Kaira
He asked Mr Sharif if the Model Town tragedy in which 14
political activists had lost their lives in a Punjab police raid was an
“act of Sikh monarchy” or not.
Mr Kaira said his party
too had reservations over both Imran Khan and Hudaibya Paper Mills cases
and wished a review of the verdicts but without abusing the judges. He
agreed with the proposition that the judiciary needed reforms to
maintain its status of an impartial institution and that “judges should
search their souls” for the purpose.
Talking to the
media outside the Islamabad accountability court on Tuesday, the PML-N
chief had referred to his long march for restoration of deposed judges
back in 2009 and vowed now to launch a movement for “justice”.
In response to the remarks, PTI chairman Imran Khan in a statement threatened a pro-judiciary movement.
Commenting
on the statements of the two leaders, Mr Kaira warned that the
counter-movements could lead the country to anarchy, but hastened to add
that the situation suited the PML-N as “continuity of the political
system would hurt its interests”.