ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday directed former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Pervez Khattak to pay Rs1.365 million within 10 days for a provincial government advertisement which carried his photo.
A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar was hearing a suo motu case pertaining to media campaigns run by the Punjab, Sindh and KP governments. The CJP had taken suo motu notice of the issue in February.
In Friday’s hearing, the KP additional advocate general said that Khattak, who is now the federal minister for defence, was willing to deposit Rs1.365m in the provincial exchequer. The CJP directed that a report should be submitted in court after the former KP CM deposited the amount.
In the same case, former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is now the leader of opposition in National Assembly, has already paid Rs5.5m while Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has paid Rs1.4m.
During an earlier hearing of the case on April 4, CJP Nisar had said that it was inappropriate for political leaders to use their photos for self-promotion in government’s media campaigns.
“The use of pictures in government ads on TV or in print is henceforth prohibited by the court,” he had ruled.
