MUZAFFARABAD: A full bench of Muzaffarabad High Court on Tuesday disqualified prime minister Azad Jammu and Kashmir Sardar Tanveer Ilyas for holding any public office for contempt of the courts.
Earlier in the day, Sardar Tanveer Ilyas appeared before the court to tender his unconditional apology but the court rejected the same and disqualified him.
On Monday, the superior courts of the AJK had separately served notices to Sardar Tanveer Ilyas to explain his position regaring his derogatory remarks about the upper judiciary in his public speeches.
The notices served through his principal secretary asked Tanveer Ilyas to separately appear before the high court and the Supreme Court on Tuesday. It is to mention here that at an Islamabad function over the weekend, Sardar Ilyas had indirectly blamed the AJK judiciary for affecting the functioning of his government while interfering in the domain of the executive through granting stay orders.
آزاد کشمیر کا وزیر اعظم ہو یا پاکستان کا، عدالتی فیصلوں کا احترام ضروری ہے، عدالتی نظام کو تباہ کر کے ملک نہیں چل سکتے، وزیر اعظم آزاد کشمیر عدالت سے معافی مانگیں امید ہے انھیں سپریم کورٹ سے ریلیف ملے گا، وزیر اعظم پاکستان اس فیصلے سے سبق حاصل کریں گے https://t.co/aT756iqvZ3
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) April 11, 2023
Ilyas had particularly referred to a $15m Saudi-funded education sector project, saying it had been in limbo because the court issued a stay order on it. Similarly, he had also taken exception to the “de-sealing by the courts of tobacco factories involved in tax evasion to the tune of billions of rupees”.
On Tuesday, Justice Chaudhry Khalid Rasheed read out the court judgement of the AJK High Court full bench, sentencing AJK premier till the rising of the court. After the verdict was announced, Ilyas who was supposed to appear before the AJK apex court, drove straight to the Prime Minister House along with members of the cabinet.
Reproducing the clipping of the premier’s speech in its order, the AJK court said that the matter was discussed in a meeting of the judges’ council “in view of its seriousness” and it was unanimously decided “it could not be overlooked because the dignity and authority of the courts was on stake and nobody could be allowed to undermine it”.
“Prime Minister Tanveer Ilyas has directly threatened the superior judiciary and the language of his speech at a public meeting is highly derogatory, improper and indecently worded,” the order said. Not only the latest statement, but his “previous track record from several months is [also] objectionable, unbecoming and improper,” it added.
The order said the judges’ council of the high court had unanimously decided not to leave the matter unattended “simply by shutting [its] eye from contemptuous and derogatory statement of the person who is at the helm of affairs.” “By showing magnanimity and judicial restraint, we have opted, in the beginning of the proceedings, to serve a notice on the prime minister to personally appear before the full court to explain his position.”
