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The Azad Jammu and Kashmir Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea of former premier Sardar Tanveer Ilyas to suspend the High Court judgement which disqualified him from being a member of the Legislative Assembly and holding any public office for two years.
The high court judgement, which was passed on Tuesday, held him in contempt for remarks he had made in a function in Islamabad over the weekend, in which he indirectly blamed the judiciary for affecting the functioning of his government and interfering in the domain of the executive through the grant of stay orders.
He had particularly referred to a $15 million Saudi-funded education sector project, saying it had been in a limbo because the court had issued a stay order on it. Similarly, he had also taken strong exception to the “de-sealing by the courts of tobacco factories involved in tax evasion to the tune of billions of rupees”. The ruling saw him lose his office. Soon after, he appealed to the AJK SC against the high court’s decision.
The petition for interim relief was part of the appeal his lawyers had submitted to the apex court on Wednesday.
On Thursday, when the court, led by Chief Justice Raja Saeed Akram, initiated proceedings on the petition, the former premier’s legal team maintained that the High Court judgment was “violative of the constitutional provisions and established principles of administration of justice.”
The appellant [Ilyas] was not given a proper opportunity of being heard and to be defended by his counsel, they maintained, adding that Article 45 of the Interim Constitution provided the proceedings for contempt to be regulated by the subordinate law, The Contempt of Court Act 1993.
They alleged that the High Court had ignored the laid down procedure provided under the Act.
The High Court was not empowered to disqualify the former premier, they contended, because an imprisonment of at least two years laid the basis for disqualification while the sentence awarded by the High Court to him lasted barely five minutes.
Justice Akram observed that when Ilyas “had admitted the commission of contempt in black and white, what else did the [High] Court need to convict him?”
As the CJ announced that the court had noted all the arguments and would consider them during the course of hearing the main appeal, the former premier’s counsel prayed that at least the apex court should suspend the operation of the notification issued by the election commission till the final disposal of the appeal.
However, the request was not granted.
It was not immediately clear when the court would start the hearing of the main appeal.
Meanwhile, shortly after the court was adjourned, a large number of angry PTI workers, including women, who had gathered in the Chattar neighbourhood and started chanting slogans against the decision.
As they moved towards the apex court building, police stopped them and upon resistance from the crowd, the police resorted to batons.
Resultantly, several PTI workers received bruises, witnesses said.
Khursheed Abbasi, a PTI activist, called upon the interim prime minister Khawaja Farooq Ahmed to suspend the police officials who had resorted to baton charges “without any justification”.