LAHORE: The Pakistani premier has said that if the Chief Justice cannot hear the case against his own son due to legal barriers, he should take up the case against the PM’s son Ali Musa Gilani instead, DawnNews reported.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday during a press conference in Lahore, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani urged Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to consider Musa Gilani as his own son and personally chair proceedings against him.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, chaired by the Chief Justice, is already hearing a petition filed by Brig Fahim of the ANF against the import of proscribed chemical Ephedrine— a scandal also involving the prime minister’s younger son Ali Musa Gilani.

Referring to former Bahria town chairman Malik Riaz, who is alleged to have handed the Chief Justice’s son Rs 300 to 400 million to influence court proceedings, the prime minister claimed during his Sunday press briefing that there was not a single politician who did not have close relations with the business tycoon.

Moreover, he said that there was also not a single case in court that the opposition PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was not a party in.

The PM, however, refused to comment on the case involving the CJ's son, saying there was a lack of proper evidence, and that there were neither any formal charges nor a complainant in the case so far.

Punjab budget, local govt elections

Speaking about the Punjab budget, the prime minister said if the Punjab government had regularly allocated the amount of money they had put aside for power generation this year, the province would have been self-sufficient in power and electricity generation.

Criticising the Sharifs on favoring local body elections in Punjab on a non-party basis, Gilani expressed his disbelief that the “preachers of democracy” were opposing local government polls on party basis.

Answering a question about upcoming general elections, PM Gilani said that they would be held as soon as the government completes it tenure of five years.

The PM further said that the era of martial law was over, and that there was “no space for martial law in the country.”