ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court allowed the management of the Jang Group on Tuesday to submit additional replies to a contempt notice issued to the management of the group over a reporter’s phone call to a judge of the apex court and misrepresentation of an earlier court order by The News on June 21.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, had on July 10 issued the contempt of court notice against Chief Editor and Publisher of the The News and Urdu Daily Jang, Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman, Printer Mir Javed-ur- Rehman and Reporter of The News Ahmed Noorani. All of them were present in the court.

The contempt notice was served for not only publishing a court order of June 21 in an unfair manner, but also over a landline phone call to Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan by the reporter to enquire about the alleged involvement of the Inter Services Intelligence in the affairs of the then JIT.

In its order of July 10, the court regretted that despite the answer that judges spoke through judgements, the reporter again contacted the judge and repeated the question.

“How could he dare do so is a question,” the then court order stated.

On Tuesday, the court allowed the management of the newspaper to submit an additional reply, which will be taken up for hearing on Aug 22.

Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman sought permission to speak on the matter. The permission was granted.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2017