The court later rescheduled the hearing for December 7 and ordered Rana Shamim to file the original affidavit.
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ordered Justice (retd) Rana Shamim to file the original affidavit, and the hearing has been postponed till December 7.
During the hearing of a contempt of court case at Islamabad High Court, former Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Justice Rana Muhammad Shamim stated that he did not recall his affidavit.
Chief Justice Athar Minallah of the Islamabad High Court
heard the contempt case involving Rana Shamim's affidavit.
In court were former Chief Justice of Gilgit-Baltistan Rana
Shamim, Attorney General Khalid Javed Khan, Advocate General Islamabad
Niazullah Niazi, Jang Group CEO Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman, and veteran journalist
Ansar Abbasi.
Chief Justice Athar Minallah questioned Justice (retd) Rana
Shamim about his affidavit response, which he had filed in court. Who have you
chosen as your legal counsel? Rana Shamim responded by announcing that he had
hired Latif Afridi as his counsel.
After then, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah asked if he had
confirmed to the journalist that the affidavit was his. Rana Shamim stated that
he had confirmed that the affidavit was mine after the published. I did not,
however, give the affidavit to the journalist. I'm not sure how it got out.
Attorney General Khalid Javed responded to Rana Shamim by saying, "Rana Shamim claims that he did not disclose this document to anybody. Now I'm going to ask the court for the original affidavit to be shown in court." The attorney general insisted that it was not a ten-year-old affidavit that he had forgotten about.
There are suspicions that the affidavit was not made by Rana
Shamim, which raises questions about who authored the document, according to
the attorney general.
Faisal Siddiqui, a judicial assistant, said he would disagree
with the Attorney General's position.
There are suspicions that the affidavit was not made by Rana Shamim, which raises questions about who authored the document, according to the attorney general.
Faisal Siddiqui, a judicial assistant, said he would disagree with the Attorney General's position.
Athar Minallah, Chief Justice of the High Court, asked the court to demonstrate that if Rana Shamim's evidence differs from the newspaper's affidavit, major issues about the newspaper will arise. I don't believe in contempt of court, and I believe judges should be above it, but this is an issue of public trust in the court.
When questioned by the court, Rana Shamim stated, "I'm
missing an affidavit. I'll have to order it from the United Kingdom."
According to the Chief Justice, Rana Sb should present the paper to the British embassy in London, and the government would take it to court.
The court later rescheduled the hearing for December 7 and
ordered Rana Shamim to file the original affidavit.