ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Interior Muhammad Tallal Chaudhry, who is facing contempt of court charges, to the surprise of the Supreme Court, submitted a list of 17 witnesses in his defence on Wednesday.

The three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed, wondered what purpose the defendant hoped to serve by bringing so many parliamentarians to present their testimony in his defence, when the court was not inclined to prolong the contempt proceedings.

Mr Chaudhry is accused of delivering allegedly derogatory and contemptuous speeches against the Supreme Court in public gatherings, which were also telecast by TV channels. The minister was earlier indicted for his Jan 1 and 27 anti-judiciary speeches and inciting hatred towards the judiciary.

Supreme Court has told him to produce them in court today

The list of defence witnesses Mr Chaudhry submitted in court include Adviser to the Prime Minister Musadaq Malik, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, MNAs Syed Ashiq Hussain Kirmani, Shahbaz Babar and Nadeem Abbas, banker Hassan Aurangzeb Abbasi, Transporters Association president Israr Khan, Faisalabad Bar ex-president Ali Abbas Khan, Zaheer Iqbal, Municipal Corporation Jaranwala vice chairman Sheikh Habib, Rakhsha Association president Atta Muhammad, Jaranwala Municipal Corporation consular Imtiaz Khan, Abdul Sattar, Tanvir Hussain, Qadir Qaiser and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) General Manager (operations)Muhammad Tahir.

In addition, the accused called for a representative of Pemra to appear, along with records of proceedings initiated by an official of the authority, with regard to alleged anti-judiciary speeches made by the accused.

Mr Chaudhry sought time to bring the witnesses to court so they could record their testimonies, but the court asked him to produce the witnesses right away, adding that the court would not unnecessarily postpone the contempt proceedings.

The minister of state for interior pointed out that it was not possible to summon all of them at such a short notice, and added that some of them were hesitant to record their testimonies before the court.

He asked the Supreme Court to defer the matter for at least a week because he would have to seek the consent of the witnesses to see if they were willing to appear before the court or not.

The court, however, rejected the request and order Mr Chaudhry to produce the witnesses before it on Thursday (today), and ordered Mohammad Tahir to appear before the court to record his statement.

On Monday, Mr Chaudhry had asked the court to show grace and discharge the contempt of court notice. He had claimed that his statements aired on electronic media on Jan 1 and Jan 27 had been edited and presented out of context.

He also rejected the charge that the tone and tenor of his statements were defamatory and amounted to scandalising the court as well as judges.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2018