LAHORE: PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Husain claimed on Monday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted to send former chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah to jail.

“Nawaz not only got telephone calls of Justice Shah tapped but also planned to send him to jail,” he told a press conference at his residence here on Monday. He said former law minister advocate Khalid Anwar was witness to this.

“Nawaz Sharif got worried after knowing that Justice Shah had come to know about tapping of his telephone calls and intended to hold a press conference. Sharif asked me and Khalid Anwar to meet Justice Shah and stop him from going to the press. Justice Shah showed us recording device placed under his bed. However, he agreed not to hold press conference over the matter,” he said.

He said Nawaz Sharif had asked the then National Assembly speaker Gohar Ayub Khan to suggest some ways to summon the chief justice before the privileges committee of the National Assembly and admonish him.

Sajjad Ali Shah’s phones were also tapped: claims Shujaat

“When Gohar Ayub told Nawaz Sharif that the committee was not authorised to summon the chief justice, the premier asked him (Gohar) to find some way to send Justice Shah to jail even for one night,” Shujaat said, adding on increasing tension between Nawaz Sharif and Justice Shah, the former orchestrated attack on the Supreme Court through Shahbaz Sharif in late 1990s and that was the blackest day of Pakistan’s history.

He said the PML-N government had again indulged in tapping the phone calls of the judges which was regrettable. He said the days of the government were numbered.

Chaudhry Shujaat said following the treatment meted out to Nawaz Sharif in Saudi Arabia he should resign.

He gave credit to PTI chairman Imran Khan for accountability of the Sharif family.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2017