ISLAMABAD: Additional District and Sessions Judge (West) Mohammad Ali Warriach has summoned the founding member of PTI Akbar S Babar (PTI) on Sept 23 to respond to a defamation suit filed by PTI on behalf of Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Dr Arif Alvi.

The party’s petition in the court termed his criticism of the ruling party’s policies on the social media ‘libelous’. Before filing the case against Babar the PTI had served two legal notices on him.

The party served first legal notice on Babar on June 14, demanding a written apology, removal of all material critical of PTI and its leadership.

The notice said if he failed to apologise and remove the material, he would face damages suit worth Rs5 billion under the Defamation Ordinance 2002. A similar legal notice was served on June 27.

In his written response to the two legal notices, PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar had categorically denied the allegations and termed it ‘baseless, misconceived, false, and malicious’.

He said that criticism of party policies and actions of its leadership was his constitutional right under Articles 17, 19, and 19A of the Constitution.

Babar claims that the legal notices have been filed in the light of the looming foreign funding case that Babar filed against the top PTI leadership to “harass and threaten him” into silencing him.

Besides, it was a “malicious and fascist attempt to deprive” him of his fundamental right of expression and freedom of speech, as well as to deny the public of fundamental right to information on matters of public importance, Mr Babar said in his reply.

Akbar S Babar filed the foreign funding case in November 2014 against the PTI leadership including its Chairman Imran Khan and the then Secretary General Dr. Arif Alvi alleging that they were involved in illegal funds collection, corruption, money laundering, and misappropriation of party funds under the political party’s funding laws.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2019