ISLAMABAD: Four days after serving a defamation notice on the PTI chairman, former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry approached the Supreme Court on Monday seeking official and attested copy of Imran Khan’s reply which he had submitted before the court in a contempt case.

The copy has been sought to be annexed with the defamation charge though the contents of it have already been mentioned by the former chief justice in the defamation notice served on Mr Khan.

Severely criticising the derogatory remarks made by Imran Khan against the judiciary and the superior court judges in a press conference of July 26 last year the Supreme Court had on July 31 summoned him to face contempt charge.

Mr Khan had criticised the judiciary and the Election Commission of Pakistan by describing their role as ‘sharmnak’ (shameful) in the alleged rigging in the general elections last year.

But on Aug 28 last year, a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali discharged the contempt notice after former attorney general Muneer A. Malik said that it was his belief that the dignity of the Supreme Court rests on the surest foundation of public respect and admiration. And that this was the most independent judiciary in our history and the nation had reached a point in its history that whosoever levels allegations against the judiciary, the people of Pakistan would never believe it and the judiciary would remain untainted, the former AG had said.

In his defamation notice the former chief justice also referred to the proceedings of the contempt case when Imran Khan himself came to the rostrum and in unequivocal terms made a statement in open court that he held highest regard and respect for the judiciary as an important institution and the third pillar of the state – a fact manifested from his past as well as present conduct.

Imran Khan had also stated that the word ‘sharmnak’ was never meant to malign someone or express disrespect for anyone, even the district returning officers and the returning officers, but it was used in the sense of being unbecoming, rather than shameful or disgraceful.

The PTI chief had further assured, according to the defamation notice, that he was committed to the supremacy of the judiciary as an independent and highly respected institution and in future too there would be no such occasion when this court would find him attributing any derogatory or scandalous remarks against it.

In every democratic county, Imran Khan said, it was extremely necessary that the judiciary as an institution should be allowed to function independently, in a most respectable and smooth manner without being made controversial so that the public at large might have full confidence in this institution and that he himself had full faith and confidence in this institution, particularly, upon the present-day judiciary, which had demonstrated its courage and independence in a number of important cases decided in the recent past.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014