PHOTO: AFP
KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and televangelist Aamir Liaquat might have to lose his National Assembly seat after continuously flouting court orders asking him to refrain from his inflammatory speeches.
Liaquat has time and again been issued notices for using abusive language and leveling false charges against famous personalities, eventually making the chief justice take notice and ask if such a person should even be in Parliament in the first place.
However, this time around, there is a chance Liaquat may lose his seat won from Karachi in the recently-held general elections. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has announced that on September 29, it will indict Liaquat for contempt of court for not for obeying earlier court orders, according to Dawn.
During the proceedings of the case, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said, “One cannot go about apologising after committing contempt of court.” He wondered whether Liauqat would be able to retain his NA seat after having a contempt of court case proven against him, to which Liaquat’s counsel said: “He cannot.”
Read: 5 shades of Aamir Liaquat
Faisal Siddiqui, the lawyer who filed the petition on behalf of the complainants, said Liaquat has been issued notices by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) some 13 times and was also banned from appearing on the TV but nothing has changed thus far. He demanded that there should be stricter action against the PTI leader this time.
Earlier in 2017, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had barred Liaquat from carrying on with his TV programmes on account of him spreading discord in the masses through his talk show. Examples of this is when Liaquat labeled social activist and election candidate Jibran Nasir a traitor and called Najam Sethi and the owner of Jang group ‘Indian agents’, according to Dawn .
Despite his notoriety, the PTI gave Liaquat a ticket to run for office from Karachi’s NA-245 which he went on to win.
