LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has been moved for a ban on telecast of speeches of retired Capt Muhammad Safdar, son in-law of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, for being contemptuous and amounted to scandalizing the judges of the Supreme Court.

Through an application filed in a pending case against the speeches of Mr Sharif and other leaders of the PML-N, Advocate Azhar Siddique stated that Mr Safdar was maligning the judges, including the chief justice, with contemptuous remarks and defamatory language and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) was doing nothing to stop it.

He said Mr Safdar had used a severe contemptuous, derogatory, defamatory language against judge(s) of the Supreme Court addressing the National Assembly on March 13. He requested the court to order Pemra to ban the speeches of Mr Safdar. He also sought directions for Pemra to suspend licenses of television channels that telecast hate material, hate speeches, derogatory remarks against the state institutions like judiciary.

A judge of the LHC has already requested the chief justice to constitute a larger bench to decide all such petitions against the anti-judiciary speeches of the Sharif family.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2018