LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry has said that a new leader of opposition in the National Assembly from the PTI should be notified before the selection of a new National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman.

While addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Chaudhry said the opposition leader in the National Assembly should be from the PTI since the Lahore High court has suspended the de-notification of the PTI legislators. Thus, he demanded that first a new opposition leader should be notified and then new NAB chairman should be appointed after consultation.

The former minister said that no one would accept Leader of the Opposition Raja Riaz’s consultation as “everyone knows he was a turncoat”. He added that if the NAB Chairman was appointed with the consultation of Riaz, it would be unacceptable.

He warned that they would approach the courts if a PTI parliamentarian was not consulted on the appointment of NAB Chairman. He also said that former NAB Chairman Aftab Sultan resigned from his post due to pressure of lodging fake cases against the government’s opponents.

He claimed that an organised campaign has been launched against the judges; “the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has started a campaign against five judges involved in the Panama case and thus the Supreme Court of Pakistan should take notice of this,” adding that they want to strengthen the judicial system in the country.

He disclosed that the PTI has decided that whenever the court would call them, they would appear before the courts. “I do not understand why the judges thought calling Khan to the court was necessary. However, out of respect for the judiciary, the former prime minister appeared for the hearing,” he added.

However, he castigated the authorities for not making arrangements for Khan’s visit to the Lahore High Court. “On Monday last, Lahore made history on the occasion of PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s appearance in the Lahore High Court; the people of Lahore expressed their love endlessly.”

On PTI’s ‘jail bharo’ (volunteer arrest) movement, he said it will begin today which would be on peaceful protests. He expressed thanks to the government for imposing Section 144 (on the few roads of the city) and added that tomorrow thousands of people would stage a protest on Mall Road. “Our only demand was snap polls,” he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023