Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar on Monday took notice of a "fake news" in Jang newspaper and summoned Mir Shakeelur Rahman, the chief editor and publisher of The News and Jang, to court for a clarification.

The Urdu daily on Monday prominently carried a story on its front page with the headline "Wants Shahbaz Sharif to become prime minister", attributing the quote to the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

"When did I express the desire for anyone to be elected," the CJP asked on Monday afternoon.

A day earlier, during the hearing of a suo motu case regarding provision of clean drinking water, an interesting dialogue took place between Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and the chief justice.

According to Dawn's report on Monday, CJP Nisar had said: “If your party comes to power, it will seriously consider making you the next prime minister.”

Sharif had responded: “You too are after my job”, to which the CJP retorted, “Not we, you are yourself after your job.”

"Everything will be fixed if the newspaper is shut for four days," Justice Nisar warned on Monday, adding that the court had already rejected Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah's statement on the matter.

The Supreme Court's registrar office, on Sunday, had rejected a statement of Rana Sanaullah that Justice Nisar desired that the PML-N form the next government. "It is clarified that the statement is totally false and concocted," the SC registrar had said.

The chief justice remarked that the Jang media group newspaper used to be a good one but "now it seems it has become mediocre".

He told a representative of the media group in court to present a clarification on the issue by tomorrow "at any cost" and ask Mir Shakeelur Rahman to appear as well.