Imran Khan and the Supreme Court

The big man swallows his words?

The Supreme Court waited till Imran Khan took up the theme of rigging during the elections undertaken allegedly with the help of judiciary for the third time and called their conduct “shameful.” The notice subsequently issued by the apex court to Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf chief maintained that prima facie it seemed he had started a deliberate campaign to scandalise the court and bring the judges into hatred, ridicule or contempt. The notice left Imran Khan unfazed, at least initially. A day before his appearance at the Supreme Court, he said he would not back down from his stance “till his last breath” and will not apologise even if he was declared ineligible and sent to jail. The PTI chief asked if a citizen of Pakistan had the right to seek justice from the Supreme Court over the alleged rigging during the recent elections. “If this is contempt, then I do not think they know the meaning of contempt.” He said the Supreme Court had made a big mistake by sending him the contempt notice. A national English daily quoted him as saying that the CJ had become controversial after the Arsalan Iftikhar case. This amounted to putting more on his plate than he could chew.

On Friday Imran Khan was on back foot. His lawyer maintained that his client had struggled for the restoration of independent judiciary and held it in great esteem. Imran Khan therefore could not even think of being disrespectful to the apex court. He pleaded that Imran Khan had in fact spoken against the returning officers and the Election Commission of Pakistan who had conducted the elections rather than the Supreme Court. The explanation failed to satisfy the three member bench which ordered the PTI leader to submit a fresh reply till August 28. Interestingly, the Court had earlier refused to give Imran Khan’s lawyer, who had returned only a day earlier from the US, three days he had requested to submit the explanation!

Speaking to the media after the Supreme Court hearing Imran Khan reiterated the stand taken by his lawyer in the court. He had used the generic name judiciary only for the ROs and not the SC, he said. But does the word exclude the higher judiciary? The constitution apparently includes the high courts and the Supreme Court in the term. Imran Khan added a new argument in his defence, saying that he didn’t consider the word ‘shameful’ as a pejorative term. According to him the word in fact meant that an action undertaken by someone made the onlooker feel ashamed. This was a comedown from the stance adopted a day earlier. The moral: politicians should choose their words correctly before they use them.