ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief organiser Maryam Nawaz said on Monday the crisis the country had been grappling with in recent times brewed less from PTI chief Imran Khan’s residence in Zaman Park and more from Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Uamr Ata Bandial’s chair.
Addressing the PDM’s sit-in outside the Supreme Court (SC), she said it all started when an irrelevant suo-motu notice was taken, constitution was rewritten, and [Article] 63-A was misinterpreted. “The building [of the SC] is meant to strengthen the democracy and bring “terrorists” to accountability”, she added.
“It indicted former PM Nawaz Sharif but when a culprit of Rs60 billion [Imran Khan] appeared, he was welcomed,” she decried.
Did they [SC judges] ever send any dictator home, she asked. “Now when the military is not willing to impose martial law, and standing beside the constitution and democracy, this building is imposing judicial martial law,” she added.
Free and fair elections could not be held until Bandial was the CJP, she said. “[CJP Bandial] Tender your resignation and go home,” she added.
She said she wanted to ask CJP Bandial whether he was happy seeing large swathes of “real people” on the Constitution Avenue [the place the PDM is staging the protest at] or not. “No one damaged anything during the protest,” she added.
She went on to say that the PDM respected the SC adding that it did not want to stage protest because the court was the source of everything the country got. “We will only talk about judges who facilitated Mr Khan,” she added.
“Whenever the country suffers damage, it comes through this building,” she claimed.
She continued by saying that the pen CJ Bandial used to back Mr Khan derived its power from people and their elected representatives, adding that ill-intentioned people were sitting in the SC.
The PML-N chief organiser said CJP Bandial abused his power to change the 4-3 verdict to a 3-2 verdict. “Why should we agree with verdict that was based on ill intentions and lies,” she asked. “You facilitated Mr Khan in a way that you were called “politician in robes” by your fellow judges and no one else”, she said.
CJP Bandial dethroned former Punjab CM Hamza Shehbaz and launched a CM who dissolved the assemblies afterward, adding that President Alvi also connived in it. “However, the biggest character of that conspiracy was CJP Bandial,” she added.
The chief justice was asked if he would announce elections after the assemblies were dissolved [in Punjab and KP] and he agreed to it, she claimed. “I ask CJP Bandial if people were eager for elections, why did not they come out to vote on May 14,” she asked.
She said another culprit was former CJP Asif Saeed Khosa who wiped Mr Sharif away from politics. “They [SC judges] do not safeguard Mr Khan only but they are corrupt themselves too,” she added.
PML-N leader claimed that the Twin tower in Islamabad was the clear evidence of SC judge Justice Ijazul Ahsan’s corruption. “Another SC judge Mazahir Naqvi is under investigation for his corruption and CJP Bandial is openly leading them,” she added.
Highlighting attacks on security installments, she said they [SC judges] had been feeding Mr Khan and he did what even Pakistan’s enemies could not do. “However, what disappoints me the most is the attack on Corps Commander’s house in Lahore,” she added. Quaid-e-Azam’s house in India was safe, she lamented, but his house in his country was not safe.
We also crticised the establishment and named Generals. “GHQ was attacked two times; first by the TTP and for the second time by Mr Khan,” she added. Mr Khan trained masses in the guise of his bruised leg, she said. It took six months to train them, she claimed. Citing PTI’s attacks on the PTV and the parliament in 2014, she said “your history is replete with terrorism”.
She said Mr Khan suggested DG ISPR make a political party. “The ISPR must be thinking that they should first settle the score with the party [the PTI] they had made in 2014,” she mocked.
No one ever committed contempt of court as much as Bandial did, she said. “If the parliament ever passes the bill, CJP Bandial will be the first to face it,” she added. Bail law was never mocked in the world the way it had been done in the SC, she claimed.
Earleir, PDM leaders Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Maryam Nawaz arrived at the PDM protest outside the Supreme Court building.
They were accompanied by Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Aftab Sherpao and Awais Noorani.
