LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) President and former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said that the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had already made several parliamentarians scapegoats before Nehal Hashmi.
Addressing a press conference at his residence at Zahoor Elahi Road on Monday, he said that Nawaz Sharif wanted to send former chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah to jail, even if it was for a night. “His (Justice Sajjad’s) bedroom phones were tapped. The then law minister and prominent lawyer Khalid Anwar advocate is also witness to this.”
He said that after the treatment meted out to him in Saudi Arabia, Nawaz Sharif should have resigned. “If he was not given time for a speech during the conference then he, at least, could have addressed a press conference in his hotel room. He was not stopped by Shah Suleman or President Trump from doing this.”
Shujaat said that the Sharif family, particularly the two brothers Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, had always been working against the courts, adding that some of the acts were unethical. “The example of [unethical acts] is recording of bedroom phones and personal conversation of former chief justice of Pakistan Sajjad Ali Shah.”
He said that Nawaz Sharif had got worried on receiving information that Justice Sajjad Ali Shah came to know about his bedrooms telephones being tapped, and after collecting proof he was now going to address a press conference. “On his request Khalid Anwar advocate and I went to the residence of Sajjad Ali Shah to pacify him. He agreed but [also] showed us the recording device placed under the side table of his bed.”
He said that the biggest witness to what he was saying was Khalid Anwar, who “is a highly dependable and respectable personality”. He said, “I challenge that even if one credible lawyer out of more than 100,000 lawyers of the country says that no such incident had taken place in presence of Khalid Anwar, then I will accept my mistake and every punishment.”
He said that on increasing tension in many matters between Nawaz Sharif and the Supreme Court, Nawaz got the Supreme Court attacked through Shahbaz Sharif, which became a laughing stock all over the world and even today that was considered to be the blackest day of the history of Pakistan. “I myself had heard the announcements on Constitution Avenue about serving of meals to the attackers in Punjab House. The tradition of making party-men the scapegoats was also initiated then, which has come to the fore in the form of Nehal Hashmi today. Then MNAs Mian Munir and Tariq Aziz were made scapegoats.”
Shujaat said that Nawaz Sharif had asked the then speaker of National Assembly Gohar Ayub Khan to suggest some way by which the chief justice could be summoned before the Privileges Committee of the Parliament and admonished. “Some close people of the prime minister endorsed his [this] decision but Gohar Ayub Khan said that under the rules and regulations the committee did not have the power to take such a big step and warned that there could be a strong reaction to this.
The speaker told him not to make such a mistake, after which the prime minister asked Gohar Ayub to accompany him to the Prime Minister’s House. On the way, as stated by Gohar Ayub, Nawaz Sharif put his hand on his knee and asked him to find a way out – that the chief justice is sent to jail, even this be for a night only. On this, the National Assembly speaker said ‘For God’s sake do not think such things that will bring the entire system to the ground’, but Nawaz Sharif remained adamant and got the Supreme Court attacked.”
Shujaat said that likewise, in 1997, the PML-N leadership got the Bahawalpur bench of the high court attacked, saying that Justice Bokhari had not given verdict of Nawaz Sharif’s liking. “[They had said] his court should be attacked and he should be humiliated. On this, the high court had convicted MPAs Afzal Gill and Samiullah, and disqualified then for five years.”
