Talal Chaudhry: SC to resume hearing of contempt of court case today

The Supreme Court will resume the hearing of a contempt of court case against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and former Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry today. The case will be heard by a three-member bench comprising Justice Gulzar Ahmad, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Faisal Arab.
The court has already issued notices to 17 witnesses of Talal Chaudhry to appear today. Additional Attorney General, who is a prosecutor in the case, will also appear on court's notice.
On last hearing, the court had recorded the statements of two, out of total 17, defence witnesses of Talal Chaudhry. Both the defence witnesses, who had testified in favour of Talal Chaudhry, were later cross-examined by the prosecutor.
The court had directed Kamran Murtaza, senior counsel for Talal Chaudhry, to produce the remaining witnesses on June 19 so that the trial could be concluded.
Earlier, on May 21, Talal Chaudhry had recorded his statement under Section 342 of Code of Criminal Procedure. He had requested the court to withdraw the charge of contempt of court against him by not casting doubts on his intentions about the dignity of the court.
He stated that he faces no allegation of prejudicing any matter pending before the court. He further stated that he honestly believed that he had neither uttered anything nor acted in a manner which might be construed as causing obstruction of the process of the court in any way, or that any order of the court had been disobeyed.
He contended that his Jan 24, 2018 press talk was edited with malafide intention and many of his sentences were removed from the actual substance to make it controversial. He stated that his Jan 27 speech was not against any of the judge. He contended that the video of his speech that was kept on record was also edited with malafide to spoil the actual and original context of his speech.
Talal was indicted on March 15, on contempt of court charges. The Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had taken suo motu notice of Talal's alleged derogatory and contemptuous statements and speeches at PML-N public gatherings against the apex court.