ISLAMABAD: The Pakis­tan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry have been engaged in a war of words since the setting up of a judicial commission to investigate alleged rigging in the 2013 general elections.

The PTI criticised the former chief justice on Sunday over his letter to the National Assembly speaker in which he objected to the continuation of membership of the party’s lawmakers after they had tendered their resignations.

Read: Former CJ urges NA speaker to accept PTI lawmakers' resignations

Justice Chaudhry’s son Arsalan Iftikhar has already filed a petition, saying that the resignation of the PTI’s MNAs should be accepted by the National Assembly Speaker.

In a detailed response, PTI spokesperson Dr Shireen Mazari listed several incidents, suggesting how the former top judge had allegedly been biased in favour of the PML-N leadership during the later part of his term.

She alleged that the letter had proved that the former chief justice “was always a part of Nawaz Sharif’s team”. Even a cursory look at the record of his actions relating to “the Sharifs makes this abundantly clear”, she said.

Also read: Ex-CJ’s son challenges PTI return to parliament

Dr Mazari said the former chief justice had given a stay order which literally kept Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister of Punjab for five years before the 2013 elections. She said it was strange how Justice Chaudhry actively pursued many corruption cases against some leaders, as well as the NRO case, and castigated a number of NAB chairmen for their perceived inactivity; but never took up a single case, out of the many lying with NAB, against the Sharif family.

Referring to the Asghar Khan case, she said: “Once the evidence had come before him of the money that was doled out to the IJI, he took no action except simply to tell the FIA to inquire into the issue. He did not follow up with the FIA and let the whole case effectively be shelved.”

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, soon after taking over the charge in 2013, had ordered implementation of the Supreme Court’s order, but no concrete development in this regard has been made public.

The SC in a ruling given on Oct 19, 2012, confirmed distribution of funds by the ISI among IJI leaders to win the 1990 elections against PPP.

In the 2013 elections, Dr Mazari continued, Justice Chaudhry chose to address the returning officers (ROs), which was an unprecedented action by a chief justice. Moreover, he later held a special function for the ROs and congratulated them for their role in the elections, she alleged.

While Justice Chaudhry was known for taking suo motu actions on trivial issues, he refused to act on a petition filed by the PTI chairman to investigate alleged rigging in four constituencies of the National Assembly, she said. He instead had allegedly tried to scare the leader by issuing him a contempt notice.

Recalling allegations of corruption against Arsalan Iftikhar, Dr Mazari claimed that the PTI would prove during hearing of the defamation case filed by Justice Chaudhry against the party’s chief that Arsalan was acting as a frontman for his father and that the latter was complicit with retired Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday in rigging.

She said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had also admitted during his speech in Haripur on April 9 that he had known about the rigging but kept quiet.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2015

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