LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday indicted two parliamentarians of the PML-N and four others in contempt of court proceedings against them for staging an anti-judiciary rally in Kasur.

The contemnors including MNA Waseem Akhtar and MPA Naeem Safdar denied the charge of the contempt and stated that they had complete regard for courts. The others included municipal chairman Ayaz Khan, vice-chairman Ahmad Latif, Nasir Khan and Jamil Khan. They said all they did was a mistake and an unintentional act.

“We always respect courts and would always do so,” they added.

“Your leader also keep saying the same thing all the day,” said Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, head of a three-judge full bench seized with the petitions seeking contempt of court proceedings against the PML-N leaders for holding an anti-judiciary rally.

The bench adjourned further hearing till May 18 and directed the contemnors to submit their written replies to the charges framed on them. It also directed the petitioners’ counsel to produce all evidence they had against the contemnors.

Earlier, the Kasur DPO filed a report regarding forensic analysis of the video record of the rally taken out by the contemnors.

Kasur District Bar Association President Mirza Naseem and others had filed the petitions pleading that the protest rally taken out by the parliamentarians and local government leaders affiliated with the ruling PML-N was a planned conspiracy against the judiciary.

The petitioners said the act of the respondent parliamentarians amounted to contempt of court and they were all liable to be punished under the law. They asked the court to also declare the respondents disqualified.

Hearing another petition against uploading of anti-judiciary material on social media websites, the bench directed the petitioner’s counsel to come up with suggestions as to how hate material against the judiciary could be controlled.

Abdullah Malik of the Civil Society Network had filed the petition pleading that anti-judiciary material was being uploaded on the social media without any check by the authorities concerned.

His counsel Azhar Siddique told the bench that several applications had been filed before the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to take action against hate material but to no avail. He said such material being uploaded on social media fell within the ambit of contempt of court and the act was liable to be punished. The bench adjourned the petition for May 18.

Justice Atir Mahmood and Justice Chaudhry Masood Jahangir are the other members of the bench.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2018