LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has urged the Supreme Court to initiate contempt proceedings against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for passing rude remarks about the recent decisions of the apex court.

“Nawaz Sharif, while expressing reservations over the Supreme Court verdict in the Imran Khan case, used harsh words for the judiciary by saying that Sikh monarchy — a reference to an era of oppression in Punjab history — won’t be tolerated,” PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“There could be no worse abuse of the judiciary than this,” he said and asked the judges to act against the PML-N president by saying “what else does the Supreme Court need to begin contempt proceedings against the disqualified prime minister?”

Cautioning the judges that if they “don’t act, each Tom, Dick and Harry would start abusing them” after losing their legal cases, he recalled that the PPP government’s prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had been sent home in a contempt case for refusing to accept an “unconstitutional order”.

PML-N chief’s ‘Sikh monarchy’ remarks are abuse of judiciary, says Kaira

He asked Mr Sharif if the Model Town tragedy in which 14 political activists had lost their lives in a Punjab police raid was an “act of Sikh monarchy” or not.

Mr Kaira said his party too had reservations over both Imran Khan and Hudaibya Paper Mills cases and wished a review of the verdicts but without abusing the judges. He agreed with the proposition that the judiciary needed reforms to maintain its status of an impartial institution and that “judges should search their souls” for the purpose.

Talking to the media outside the Islamabad accountability court on Tuesday, the PML-N chief had referred to his long march for restoration of deposed judges back in 2009 and vowed now to launch a movement for “justice”.

In response to the remarks, PTI chairman Imran Khan in a statement threatened a pro-judiciary movement.

Commenting on the statements of the two leaders, Mr Kaira warned that the counter-movements could lead the country to anarchy, but hastened to add that the situation suited the PML-N as “continuity of the political system would hurt its interests”.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2017