ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday maintained that the “twist given to Imran Khan’s comments about Justice Asif Saeed Khosa in an interview is malicious and unfortunate.”
A press statement issued by Supreme Court registrar said that it was being insinuated in some sections of media that in a recent interview with a television channel Imran Khan had stated that he had been ‘requested’ by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa to file a petition before the Supreme Court in connection with the Panama Papers scandal. It said the interview itself refers to some observations made in the courtroom during the judicial proceedings. “The fact of the matter is that on November 1, 2016, many constitution petitions pertaining to the said scandal were fixed for hearing before a larger SC bench headed by then Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Khosa was also a part of that five-member bench.” The statement said, “When hearing of the matter came to a close on that day, Justice Khosa addressed the counsel for the parties and observed in open court to the effect that now that the court sitting at the apex of the dispute resolution mechanisms in the country had taken cognizance of the matter the parties would be well advised to ‘hold their horses’ and to reconsider their positions regarding the call for lockdown of Islamabad planned for the next day which was likely to cause extreme hardship to the citizens at large.”
The statement says that it appears that those observations were accorded due deference and the lockdown of Islamabad was called off.
It said Justice Khosa has never met or talked to Imran Khan in any private capacity throughout his life and has no personal acquaintance with the gentleman.
It said the relevant constitution petitions had been filed before the Supreme Court by different petitioners many months prior to November 1, 2016, and the twist given to some of the words used in the interview was, therefore, malicious and unfortunate.
Published in Daily Times, August 2nd , 2017.
