ISLAMABAD: After party ranks found it apologetic in tone, PTI’s legal mind and vice president Hamid Khan on Wednesday formally withdrew the reply that he had submitted to the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s Rs20 billion defamation notice to the party chief, Imran Khan,

As detractors made fun of the apologetic-sounding reply, PTI officials hastily dismissed it, saying it was issued without consulting Imran Khan.

Counsel Hamid Khan was abroad when the six-page reply to the defamation notice, written on the letterhead of Hamid Khan and Ahmed Awais, was submitted on behalf of Imran Khan.

Served on July 24, the notice took offence to Imran Khan’s unremitting jibe at the former chief justice of cheaply selling himself for his alleged role in rigging 2013 general elections to get his son inducted in the Balochistan Investment Board eventually.

Surprisingly, the softly-worded reply heaped praise on Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry for his role in establishing rule of law, delivering July 31, 2009 landmark judgment and spearheading the lawyers’ movement and said the focus of plaintiff (Justice Chaudhry) had always been on rendering service to the country and did never care about making money.

But instantly after the reply was released to the media on August 25, Ms Shireen Mazari, spokesperson for Imran Khan, made known that the PTI chief stood by all he had said about Justice Chaudhry and his role in the electoral rigging in 2013 and the appointment of returning officers (ROs), and others, involved in it.

Ex-CJ’s counsel says Hamid Khan’s licence may be revoked if proven he bypassed Imran to file reply

Imran Khan himself later lambasted the former chief justice in his address to his supporters at the PTI’s Azadi sit-in.

On Wednesday, the PTI spokesperson announced that Mr Khan had ordered his lawyer Hamid Khan to withdraw the reply submitted on his behalf to Justice Chaudhry.

Hamid Khan did that and confided that a new reply might be submitted. But someone else would be doing that, not him.

Meanwhile, the episode has inspired loud thinking in the legal fraternity whether a reply, once moved, can be withdrawn or not.

Advocate Sheikh Ehsanuddin, who is representing Justice Chaudhry in the case, certainly thinks rules do not permit so.

A former president Rawalpindi High Court Bar Association, he cited the 1975 Supreme Court case of Ahmed Khan versus Rasool Shah to Dawn in support of his view.

Sheikh Ehsanuddin said Hamid Khan faces revocation of his professional licence if he had actually bypassed his client while filing the reply. That is in case a complaint is moved against Hamid Khan in the Pakistan Bar Council under the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council’s Act 1973.

Justice Chaudhry’s counsel recalled that the draft of the reply was finalised on August 2 and was sent to Justice Chaudhry on August 18. He said that Ahmed Awais himself admitted, on a television channel, that the same was vetted and approved by former Supreme Court judge Wajihuddin also.

Sheikh Ehsanuddin felt for the reputation of Hamid Khan as a senior counsel but said the development “leaves us no choice but to formally move the defamation case before Islamabads District Court pretty soon”.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2014