Contempt of court: ex-MNA among PML-N leaders awarded one month in prison

LAHORE: A Lahore High Court (LHC) bench on Friday handed down one-month imprisonment to four PML-N leaders, including former MNA Waseem Sheikh, for staging an anti-judiciary rally in Kasur. 

The three-judge bench headed by Justice Mazahir Ali Akbar Naqvi found Sheikh, former Bait-ul-Mal Kasur chairman Nasir Khan, PML-N local leader Jameel Khan and former local government official Ahmed Latif guilty of committing contempt of court.

It, therefore, awarded one month of rigorous imprisonment to all the convicts with a fine of Rs100, 000 to be paid by each of them.

The bench, however, exonerated ex-MPA Naeem Safdar and Ayaz Khan from the charges.

After the pronouncement of the verdict, the former MNA and other convicts were taken into custody from court premises by the police.

During the course of the hearing, the PML-N leaders verbally tendered unconditional apology, which the court had rejected and appointed a state counsel as prosecutor to frame charges against them.

Video clips of the protest rally were also played on an electronic projector in the courtroom.

Kasur District Bar Association President Mirza Naseem and others had moved the petitions in the high court.

They claimed that the protest rally of the PML-N leaders was a well-thought out conspiracy to malign the judiciary and pleaded that the participants of the rally should be punished for committing contempt of court.