LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday issued a notice to ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz in connection with a petition seeking against them for “consistently targeting the Supreme Court in their statements”.
A division bench of the LHC directed the respondents to submit their replies by Jan 18, while issuing the notice to them.
The petition filed in the court states that Sharif and his daughter have been heaping scorn on the judiciary in their statements, which constituted contempt of court.
He, therefore, requested the judges to initiate contempt of court proceedings against them and restrain them from issuing such statements.
Nawaz Sharif had announced a campaign against what he called the “double standards” of the judiciary.
He had said the “double standards of justice were not acceptable, and that they will do everything to uphold the supremacy of the law and the Constitution”.
According to him, while he was disqualified for not receiving a salary from his son, Khan’s hundreds of thousands of pounds had not been viewed as an ‘asset’ [by the top court].
A day earlier, he had said that no court has ever come into existence in Pakistan which could try dictators.
He went on to say that his differences are not with the Supreme Court (SC) but with certain judges who did not decide his case [Panama Papers] on merit.
Nawaz complained that judges welcomed every martial law and had said that whenever there was a military coup in the country, no one would know about it but this is not the case today. The three-time prime minister demanded a trial for military dictators in the same way that he was tried in the Supreme Court.
Regarding the current Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar’s suo moto notices of conditions at public hospitals, Sharif said, “Feel free to go to these hospitals, but also look at what is happening in your own courts. Hundreds of thousands of cases are pending in court and people are awaiting their decision.”
“Justice is so expensive that even I am tired of paying my lawyers’ fees,” Sharif had said.