LAHORE: A sessions court on Friday issued a fresh notice to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on a Rs10 billion suit for damages filed by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif under the Defamation Ordinance, 2002.

Advocate Mustafa Ramday appeared before the court to represent the chief minister, however, nobody appeared on behalf of the defendant, Imran Khan.

A court official stated the notice earlier issued to the defendant could not be served on him. At this, Additional District and Sessions Judge Azfar Sultan issued a fresh notice to Imran for Aug 21.

The suit stated the defendant in April last started uttering false and malicious statements against the plaintiff (Shahbaz) that the latter offered Rs10bn to the former through a common friend in exchange of withdrawing the Panama case pending before the Supreme Court.

It said the plaintiff served a legal notice on the defendant asking him to tender a proper apology within 14 days through print and electronic media. However, the defendant failed to make an apology and the plaintiff left with no option but to approach the court for the recovery of damages.

It pleaded that baseless and defamatory statements by the defendant were widely circulated by the media lowered the integrity of the plaintiff and caused him extreme mental torture, agony and anxiety.

Shahbaz sought a court decree for the recovery of Rs10 billion from the defendant as compensation for the publication of defamatory content against him.

Shahbaz: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif continued his tirade against political rivals, particularly PTI Chairman Imran Khan here on Friday and said that “unprecedented” development programme of the ruling PML-N was unnerving them.

In a statement issued here, he said despite repeated obstacles created by the opponents, the country was moving towards overcoming the energy crisis speedily.

He said politics is the name of public service and the people unaware of the fact were conspiring to cause anarchy in the country. He said that days of negative politics of the elements relying on “artificial support of falsehood” are numbered.

The chief minister said the “sit-in” group and “corrupt” former rulers were two sides of the same coin and grouping of the opponents is a conspiracy against development and prosperity of the people.

Shahbaz said those who paid no attention to overcoming the energy crisis in their tenure were afraid that their politics would come to an end due to an end to the load-shedding problem.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2017