Rana Shamim, others to be indicted for contempt of court on Jan 7: IHC
Court appoints AGP as prosecutor in former GB judge’s affidavit case
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday said it was confident that the case of an affidavit submitted by Rana Shamim, former top judge of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), was prima facie that of contempt of court, and said that all the suspects in the case would be indicted on January 7, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
In his 12-page written order, Chief Justice of the IHC Justice Athar Minallah wrote that it was mentioned in the story filed by The News (English daily) correspondents Ansar Abbasi and Amir Ghauri that the affidavit given by the former judge was not the part of any court hearing. “The stance taken by both these journalists was not expected of them. On the face of it, it appears that not much care was taken before publishing the news. Initially, the court was under the impression that the role of reporters and that of the newspaper’s editor was restricted to publishing the story only,” reads the order.
Justice Minallah goes on to add that both Abbasi and Ghauri claimed that they had filed the story in the public interest as if they ‘believed’ what was written in the affidavit.
The court, on the occasion, also appointed Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Khalid Jawed Khan as a prosecutor in the case.
The News had created quite a stir around a month ago when it carried a story in which it was claimed that former top judge of GB Rana Shamim had written down an ‘affidavit’ in which he had accused former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Saqib Nisar of pressuring the judges to deny bails to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz. Reporter: Ihtesham Kiani